Out of Her Shell
by practical cynicism
Summary: Lily's an outcast who hates popular kids, and to her James is no different. Their first meeting didn’t go off too well but James fell for her at some point & found out the reason for her bitterness. He vowed to be the one to make her come out of her shell
1. An Outcast with an Attitude

Out of Her Shell 

**By Dimantrien**

**Chapter 1: An Outcast with an Attitude**

It was nearing the end of November. The air was unmercifully cold, and the Hogwarts students were more than willing to be in the safe shelter and warmth of the castle than outside in that blizzard. Except maybe for some…

SPLAT! A snowball went smack on the back of sixteen-year-old James Potter's head, forcing him to lurch forward slightly, his glasses askew. He stopped for a moment to readjust his glasses on his face when another snowball collided with his shoulder. The sound of male laughter was heard behind him.

"Ha! Got you good, didn't I, Mister Ace Quidditch Seeker?" Sirius Black sniggered behind him. Dark haired and with drool-worthy looks, the famous (or infamous, can't decide which) master prankster was known to be a menace to all Slytherins, and a god to most of Hogwarts' girl populace.

Remus Lupin, their light-brown haired and normally calm (which was ironic, since he was lycanthropic) friend, spoke up a little ways behind Sirius. "That wasn't fair, Sirius. James asked for a time out, and it's against the rules to attack your opponent when he is temporarily incapable to fight." He was the "referee" to James' and Sirius' rather bizarre game, wherein, out of boredom from not having anyone to prank on (most Slytherins were in the hospital wing, suffering under colds), they had made up rules to the traditional snowball fight. Personally, he didn't think this did them much good, since James and Sirius were highly competitive and would resort to any means to win. 

Which, of course, meant that they would break the rules. It was pointless to organize rules, especially for the two biggest rule-breakers in Hogwarts' history. Remus voiced his thoughts to them.

Sirius shook his head. "No, no, Rem. We _are _following the rules. See, you're _allowed_ to hit your opponent with a snowball when his back is turned, as long as he was in the game, and since James was obviously in the appropriate position for that—"

"No I wasn't! Sirius, you lying, cheating sneak." James interjected.

Remus threw up his hands. "Oh for Merlin's sake, you two are acting like four-year-olds! Which, I would like to remind you, are four times younger than your age, but you are making a damned good imitation of them…"

Both Sirius and James scowled. Simultaneously, there was a sneeze behind them.

"Guys," Peter Pettigrew spoke up, holding a soggy tissue over his nose, "leb's geb inside. Ib's freezing oub here, and I don'b wan' bo be sbuck in the hospibal wing with the Slytherins all week long…AH-CHOO!!!"

"Yeah, let's," James agreed, shivering. He was still dripping with not-quite melted snow. It was amazing how just when he thought it would turn to liquid, it would solidify almost immediately with the below-zero degree temperature surrounding them.

The four friends trudged back up to the castle, bowing down to the freezing gale. As soon as they were inside, a comforting warmth washed over them.

"Incredible…I can actually feel my fingers again," Remus muttered, shaking his hands, which were numb with cold. "You guys owe me big time, making me stand outside in that blizzard what with the full moon so near…"

"Sorry 'bout that, Moony," Sirius sang, his voice annoyingly cheerful. "Wanna go down to the kitchens? I'm starving, and as I was benevolently reminded by Prongs here when he chucked a snowball right in my mouth when I was laughing, snow is absolutely inedible. We need real food." Not waiting for Remus to answer, he slung his arm over his shoulder and dragged him down the entrance hall. 

"Hey, waib for me—ACHOO!" Peter sneezed, but James held him back.

"You need to go to the hospital wing, Wormtail," he said sternly, but in a concerned way. "Don't worry about those Slytherins, if they give you any trouble, Sirius and I will make sure to give them a '_warm'_ welcome as soon as they're well enough to stop sneezing two hundred times a day."

Peter nodded, after all, James was the "leader" of their group, along with Sirius, and he promptly obeyed. James watched Peter disappear around a corner before climbing up a marble staircase. He briefly thought of finishing a Charms assignment that was due a week from now. With too much time on his hands in the absence of Slytherin victims, he had finished most of his assignments whose due dates ranged from three days off to two months. That was a side of the great James Potter; he was responsible, organized and sensible. Well, when he wanted to anyway. The other side was pretty much the opposite. 

He strolled down a deserted corridor that was a shortcut to the Gryffindor Tower. And that was when he heard it.

It was the familiar sound of someone crying, and it was coming from the room to his left. Cautiously, he crept towards it and opened the door, but whoever was inside must have heard him, for when he entered there was no one inside and another door on the other side of the room stood ajar. 

Quickly, he took out a piece of parchment from his robes and muttered some words. Instantly, the marauder's map unfolded before him, and he saw a dot of a person starting to move away from the room where "James Potter" was marked. 

It read: Lily Evans.

*****

"What's up with you, James? James? _James!_" Sirius practically shouted in his friend's ear.

"Huh? What?" James answered in a dazed voice, snapping his head up after staring at his food-laden plate at dinnertime in the Great Hall. He was thinking about what he heard in that corridor. Lily Evans was the kind of person who was stereotyped as the "weird social outcast" so nobody really paid any attention to her much. In fact, until that incident, he had only remembered who she was.

"I said, wouldn't it be good to enchant Snape's shampoo—if he even had one, that is, though I highly doubt that since his hair is the greasiest—"

"Sirius, just get to the point," Remus groaned beside him, rolling his eyes. There were purplish shadows beneath his gray-blue orbs, a sign that he had just underwent a transformation days before. 

"Right. As I was thinking, we should enchant Snape's shampoo so that it would flash pink letters above his head about the feelings he has for whoever his crush is, which, I might add, would humiliate him to no end," Sirius stated.

James snorted. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but with that hair of his, it would be proper to assume that he bathes it in oil instead of water. And since oil repels water, he would get it through in his idiot mind that it wouldn't come off no matter how many gallons of water he pours on his overlarge head." His two friends laughed.

"Well, there's only one way to find out if he _does_ wash it," Sirius said with a shrug. "If our spell works, then that means that he actually has the decency to take a bath once in a while." 

"Point taken," Remus said. "The charm's _Adoncherrium, _I looked it up the other day. Now the only part left is deciding which of us will sneak into the Slytherin common room and perform the spell on Snape's shampoo—"

"I wouldn't fancy entering their bathroom and finding Snape taking a shower with a pink, heart-printed shower cap on his head, singing the Sorting Hat's song," Sirius said with a shudder. Then his face lit up. "But I wouldn't mind taking my camera with me and capturing that humiliating moment on film and reproducing it to add another item to our '1000 Embarrassing Moments of Severus Snape' list."

"No, we can't let Sirius do it, he'll get caught before you can say hex. I'll go to their tower," James volunteered. Sirius scowled.

"No, _you _can't go around sneaking into other Houses' towers in the middle of the night and getting caught because you're a _prefect, _Prongs," Sirius argued. "A saintly, law-abiding, perfectly disciplined prefect. Or you're supposed to be. So you can't be the one to do it." He looked pleased at his quick thinking.

"Fine, then who _will_ we send there? Peter?" James said sarcastically. 

Sirius laughed. "No way! Sure, Pete's nice and all, but he's useless at charms. The highest mark he ever got from that subject is a ten on a forty-item quiz."

James sighed. "If it makes you so happy, you can go. But if you get caught you'll have to tell authorities that we didn't have anything to do with it."

"Ahhh. Trying not to add another blot in Prefect Prongs' already stained record, huh?" Sirius remarked with a grin. 

"I doubt that there are any white spaces left in his permanent record. Why Dumbledore declared him a prefect is beyond me," Remus said with a wry smile.

"He only did it because he knows that it'll prevent me from taking part in any pranks," James answered darkly. "If that was the case, then he should've assigned Sirius instead. Too bad there're only two prefects per year—fifth and up, that is. And one of them's _always_ a girl." 

"Who's Gryffindor's sixth year female prefect?" Sirius asked curiously.

James shrugged. "Dunno. Haven't met her."

"But you should! You always have those prefect meetings…" Remus reminded.

"Yeah, but I don't have to work directly with her," James pointed out. "Anyway, I have to go. I still haven't done my Charms essay…"

"See ya later, Prongs," Sirius called as he left, still shoving food into his face. It was a wonder that he could do that and still have girls giggling and gaping at him with a glazed look on their faces.

*****  

James entered the common room, which was almost entirely empty. There was a girl sitting in a desk at a corner of the room. She had her back to him and he didn't recognize her, but he decided to acknowledge her anyway. "Hi. What're you doing in the common room all alone?" he asked, walking over to her.

The girl didn't respond, but turned around for the source of the voice. James' eyes widened. It was Lily Evans.

They just stood (Lily sat) there for about a minute, looking at each other, before Lily turned back to the book she was reading.

James shifted his position uncomfortably. "Er, why don't you sit by the fire or something? There's a lot more light there…" he trailed off since Lily obviously wasn't paying any attention to him. He couldn't help but wonder what her answer would be if he asked her why she was crying in that empty classroom.

"Um…Lily?" he asked somewhat nervously.

Lily shifted her position slightly, which he took as a "Yeah, what?"

James cleared his throat. "Well, I was…uh…wondering-er-why was…I mean, why were you in that empty classroom earlier this day, crying?" He suddenly pondered if he had done the right thing.

At first there was no reply from the redheaded outcast. Then when James turned around, thinking that it was pointless to get answers out of a person who was probably both mute and deaf, she slammed her book shut and stood up. He looked back at her.

"Why don't you just mind your own damned business?" Lily snapped at him, but he saw the look of fear…and something else…in her eyes.  It was a kind of haunted and melancholy emotion that James was sure depressed people had. 

Nevertheless, James' eyes flashed. "Excuse me, but I was just _concerned_," he retorted. 

Lily snorted. "The only thing you popular people are concerned about are your looks and what others think of you," she scoffed. "There's hardly any room for _concern, _is there?"

"At least we don't just skulk in a corner, snapping at anyone who tries to extend sympathy to them!" James was furious. How could anybody say that about him? That he was just a typical dumb jock who got carried away with popularity? He wasn't just going to stand here and let this outcast, who thought she knew everything, to openly mock him.

"Why don't you get lost and snog a bimbo in a broom closet somewhere?" Lily mockingly suggested, waving him away.

James glowered at her. "This is my common room as much as yours. You can't order me around," he said stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You won't go? Fine. Stay here and wait for your ditzy flavor-of-the-day. I don't need this crap." Lily started to stalk away towards the girls' dormitory.

"Right! Go back to your weird friends. Oh, I forgot, you don't _have_ any friends, do you?" James couldn't help calling after her. Lily stopped momentarily, her head bowed, but then she walked again and disappeared at the staircase to the dorms. 

James suddenly felt guilty that he had offended her like that, but then another voice told him that Lily had insulted him, more so than what he had said to her. He relaxed.

Just as he was walking in the same direction as Lily did he notice something glistening on the blood red floor. He stooped down to check them out.

Tears.

*****  

**AN – **Review me! That's all I'm asking for.


	2. The Reverse

**Out of Her Shell**

By Dimantrien 

**AN – **Thanx for all the reviews! You made me want to write even though I'm supposed to update other fics first…and I owe my sister a slash fic! I don't like slash much (sorry to those who do, but different people have different opinions right?), but I can't do anything about it coz it's a Christmas present that she forced me into doing…OK I'll stop babbling now.

**Chapter 2: The Reverse**

Lily stomped up to the girls' dormitory, fuming, tears running down her porcelain cheeks. How dare that Potter insult her? As if he knew anything about her. As if he knew anything about her _life. _She wasn't going to fall for his tricks, trying to get her to spill her guts and let him spread it to the whole school. She wasn't that stupid. 

She shouldn't even be crying now. It was more than enough that he had mocked her about her being an outcast; he had made her cry. And Lily Evans would never spill tears because of an idiot who only thought he was smart because of his popularity. Wiping away the tears with the back of her hand, she opened the door to her dorm. 

As soon as she entered her dormitory, she slammed it shut so loudly that she was amazed the door didn't smash to bits.

"Easy, Lily. You don't want to walk around with a temper like that." 

Lily swung around, startled at the voice. She thought she was the only one in here.

Aurelia Walden, a fellow Gryffindor sixth year, was lying down on her bed, rolls of parchment spread out all around her. She was one of the nicer girls in the school; she got along well with Lily but Lily couldn't exactly call her a friend either. She was pretty in some people's opinion, with dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes. One thing Lily liked about her was that she wasn't one of those popular ditzes who thought that they owned the world or something.

"Who made you that mad anyway? I'd like to see the look on their face when they see the look on _your _face right now…from a safe distance," Aurelia commented with a laugh. 

"James Potter," Lily muttered, throwing the book she was reading a while ago into her trunk.

Aurelia didn't respond. She knew how much Lily loathed the popular kids. She didn't like some of them herself, but if they were alone and not in a group, they were actually decent people. She watched Lily change into her nightgown, shut the hangings on her bed and lie down. After a while, she left the room, taking her armful of parchments with her.

*****  

James couldn't believe that he wasn't seething. It was probably the guilt eating at him. He didn't usually rub it in people's faces about the negative things about them. It wasn't like him.

He heard footsteps from the girls' dormitory. Was it Lily? He was ready to apologize, even though she did mock him. He knew that he had said something harsher. At least he had friends by his side; Lily didn't.

To his disappointment, it was Aurelia Walden who emerged. She looked at him with an odd expression on her face, then started to head for the portrait hole.

"Wait!" James called, and Aurelia stopped, glancing back at him. "Did you—I mean, was Lily angry?"

"You bet. She was really upset, James. What did you tell her?" Aurelia narrowed her eyes at him.

James could feel the guilt ebbing at him again. "I-er-kind of pointed out to her that she didn't have any friends," he said, not believing that he had actually said those things.

Aurelia sighed. "James, I know that you and your friends don't pay any attention to Lily, but I have to tell you something. Lily hates popular kids—like you. She never tells anyone why. I know you think that's unreasonable," she added hastily when James opened his mouth in furious protest, "but she has her reasons. Please don't make her feel worse than she already does. I may not know what exactly happened to her that made her personality like that, but it's obvious that she's hurting about something."

"Hurting?" James repeated blankly. 

"You know…maybe from experience. She may have come off bad with a popular person way back when, and that's why she doesn't like others so much. I don't really know." Aurelia shrugged. She stood there for a few more moments, as if she was waiting for James to say something else, but he didn't. She sighed and went through the portrait hole.

"Past experience, huh?" he said to himself. Aurelia was right. Nobody would act the way Lily did without a cause. And for some unknown reason, James had to know what it was.

*****  

"And so, we need a bottle of electric green dye, baking soda, and a loofah," Sirius concluded, glancing at his three friends from the top of the long parchment he was reading from. "I'll get the baking soda from the kitchens, and Moony, I think you should buy the dye from Zonko's. They've got some special effect ones that would make the prank even better." His dark eyes glittered at the thought. "Prongs, you get the loofah—"

"Where am I going to get that?" James interrupted. "It's not like we actually use them."

Sirius frowned. "I dunno—go to the girls' dormitory and steal it from their bathroom! It's not like they'd find out you were there, just sneak into their room when they're sleeping…"

James sighed. "Why do I feel that I'm the only one who does the actual rule-breaking? And _I'm_ the prefect," he muttered under his breath. 

Sirius went on to tell him that he had to get it at midnight to make sure no one was awake. They still had double Charms for that day. They put away their things and headed for the Charms classroom.

Ten minutes later they were in their desks, listening (or at least pretending to listen) to Professor Flitwick going on about their N.E.W.T.S. next school year and how they needed practice with even the most basic charms. For that day he asked them to review Cheering Charms, and paired them off. To Lily's disappointment and James' dread, they were paired with each other.

James just dreaded it because he knew that Lily was mad at him. But he had to apologize, and that was what he was planning to do.

Lily greeted him with a scowl. She sat down on the desk next to him but didn't talk to him, nor look him in the eye.

James took a deep breath. "Listen, Lily, I know I insulted you yesterday, but I just want to tell you that I wasn't thinking and that I'm really sorry. I was just concerned, and if that offends you then I won't bother you anymore. I just wanted to help—"

"Like I'd take any advice from a pretty boy like you," Lily said in reply, her voice dripping with sarcasm.  James felt his blood pressure rising, but he ignored it and told himself repeatedly, _There's a reason behind it, there's a reason behind it…_

Lily did the charm on him first, perhaps to make him incapable of apologizing further and pissing her off more. She executed it perfectly, and after twenty minutes, the charm wore off. Other students were having some problems; for example, two girls were laughing their heads off, and Sirius must have thought it witty to perform a Fury Charm and cause his partner to glare and shout obscene words for everyone to hear.

Professor Flitwick was in a mad frenzy as he tried to restore peace. "Black, I do hope you know the countercurse for Longbottom, or else you're looking at a week's worth of detention," he said hurriedly, performing a Silencing Spell on Frank Longbottom, who was just shouting, "YOU F*CKING IDIOTS!!! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU ALL SMILING AT?! DAMNED CHARMS, I'M SURROUNDED BY LUNATIC A*SHOLES!!!" 

Sirius, who was clutching his stomach because of laughing so hard, jumped up with some reluctance and said the countercurse. He was rather disappointed.

With a sigh of frustration, Professor Flitwick ordered the pairs of students to go to separate classrooms to practice. Soon after, only Lily and James were left in the classroom, as Flitwick had scurried off to attend to others' mishaps.

James did the charm on Lily and waited. Lily's eyes glazed over and for a moment, she didn't react. To James' shock, instead of a smile (he was hoping to see what Lily looked like when she smiled; she always did scowl when she laid eyes on him), a stream of tears ran down her cheeks. Not knowing what to do, James went to fetch Professor Flitwick, since he didn't have any clue what was wrong. He was positive that he had done the spell right though.

Flitwick went with him and saw Lily, tears still coming out of her green eyes. A haunted look was on her face; it was as if she had gone through something terrible. The weird thing was, she didn't look conscious of the tears leaking out of her emerald eyes. She didn't seem aware that she was in a classroom. Like the Cheering Charms, which made you happy without a reason, she looked like she was suffering a past ordeal…without a reason. 

"Are—are you sure you spoke the words right, Potter?" Flitwick asked in a soft voice, approaching Lily. 

"Yes," James said firmly. "Professor, what—?"

"It is the reverse effect of the Cheering Charm, or any other spell that attempts to make a person blissfully happy without a reason," Flitwick started to explain, though his eyes darkened. "When this happens, it means that the person under the charm has suffered through a horrible experience, an experience too great to be covered up with false happiness and joy. The event that has darkened her life is much more powerful than any spell that would attempt to mask it."

James' mouth hung open. So it _was _true. Something in the past must have made Lily act the way she was. But why was she bottling it up inside her? Why wouldn't she confide in others? "Er, Professor Flitwick, what exact experience did she go through—"

"I'd rather not tell you, Potter," Flitwick warned, knowing at once where James was going with this conversation. "That is for Miss Evans to know, and only when she is ready will she tell you herself. This matter is too personal to go about spreading to others." He did a complicated motion with his wand and muttered an indistinct spell at Lily. Instantly the tears stopped and Lily seemed to be starting to regain her senses. Flitwick nodded briskly at James and left the room.

Lily blinked and saw James gaping at her. The melancholy expression on her face disappeared and turned into a glare. "What the hell do you think you're looking at, Potter?" she spat. Then, as if she had just realized what had happened to her, the glare became a look of horrified panic and she took out a mirror out of her pocket, examining her face. She swore under her breath and wiped the tears off her cheeks.

James wasn't dumb enough to press her for questions when she was obviously in such a bad mood and just remained silent while Lily cleaned herself up, cursing all the while. 

"You didn't do a Tear Charm on me instead of a Cheering Charm, did you?" Lily asked finally in a shaky voice. The lack of hostility in her tone made a difference; it would have sounded almost pleasant if she wasn't trembling so much.

"No," James said slowly. "I did the charm right. Professor Flitwick said—"

"Damn," Lily said out loud, and simultaneously the bell rang signaling the end of Charms. Without another word she rushed out, leaving a very baffled James behind.

*****  

**AN – **I have exams next week -_- so I dunno if I can put the next chapter up fast enough… But I really appreciate your comments (even criticisms are welcome) so click the Go button! I need reviews to cheer me up for the three days of dread that are coming up…

~Your typical review desperado,

   Dimantrien ^_^


	3. The Letter

Out of Her Shell 

**By Dimantrien**

**AN – **Thanx for all the reviews!!! I luv u all and I always will even if I'm too lazy to even write your names in gratitude! 

**Chapter 3: The Letter**

"C'mon, Prongs, just _go_ already! _Go_!" Sirius urged impatiently.

It was half past midnight, and of course Sirius Black's sole concern, which was above his best friend's precious sleep, was the acquiring of the loofah that they were going to use for their next prank.

Sirius, who in entering the room a minute ago, had seen James already in the phase of going to sleep. It took him ten whole minutes to force his friend to leave his bed, ten more minutes to make him walk across the room to the door, and ten more minutes to wake James up when he fell asleep right in the middle of the doorway. This left him with extreme lack of sleep, and an outrageously out-of-control temper to boot.

"Sirius, can't I just do it tomorrow—" James said sleepily, but Sirius pushed him out the door and slammed it. James heard the lock turning and Sirius muttering a spell, and knew that he couldn't go back inside unless he had completed his "mission." It was only then that he realized that he didn't have his invisibility cloak with him. He knew it was useless to go back inside; Sirius would probably have put an Acoustic Charm on the door that would deactivate when James appeared with the loofah. Curse his friend and his ridiculously broad knowledge when it came to pranks. 

With a longing sigh, thinking of his warm bed, he trudged down the boys' staircase and went up the girls' one. Invisibility cloak or no invisibility cloak, he was stuck with putting up with Sirius' order. He reached the sixth years' dorm and found it locked.

_"Alohomora," _he murmured. He slowly opened the door and to his relief the room was silent. He didn't dare turn on the lights because of the risk that one of the girls would wake up.

The door to the bathroom was nearest to the last girl's bed, which was in the furthest corner. The hangings on that bed was partially open, as if the girl who owned it had gotten up in the middle of the night and came back, not closing it properly. He neared the bed and saw the conspicuous red hair that lay against the gold pillow.

It was Lily. But she didn't look the same as she did when she was awake. There was a peaceful and almost angelic expression on her face (AN - then again, who doesn't when they're asleep? ;P). If he hadn't seen the effect of the Cheering Charm on her just hours before, or if he didn't know that she was Hogwarts' resident outcast, he would have mistaken her as one of the most popular socialites in school. She was beautiful, but she hid it behind a melancholy mask and a rude and bitter personality that ruined everything. James had almost gone crazy the last few hours because of theorizing what experience Lily went through that could be so horrendous—

A sudden shift of position from one of the other girls snapped him back to reality and he remembered what he was here for. Tiptoeing past Lily's bed and into the bathroom, he had only to open the cabinet behind the mirror to grab a loofah. _Thank God for girls who are meticulously organized, _he thought, coming out. Then he stopped dead. 

Aurelia Walden was getting up from her bed and heading towards the bathroom. Before she could see him, he rolled sideways on the floor to the side of Lily's bed, causing him to disappear from view. If only he had the invisibility cloak…

He heard the door shut quietly but didn't move; for all he knew, Aurelia probably would just have a pee in the middle of the night. 

While he waited, a gold-gilded book that was sticking out from under the bed caught his eye. He picked it up and opened it, realizing that it wasn't a book but a photo album. From the looks of the stationary people in the photographs, he knew that the pictures were Muggle.

The first few pictures he flipped to were mostly of a couple who resembled Lily a lot…_her parents, _James decided. He turned the page and looked at the next picture. 

Mr. and Mrs. Evans' faces smiled up at him, and there were two more people in the picture—a girl with blonde hair and bony features who was also grinning, and a younger version of Lily. The Lily in the photo was also smiling, and it felt weird to see her like that. Lily's trademark expression was an irritated scowl or, on occasion, a death glare. She always sported it wherever she went, and it always seemed that nothing would ever make her happy.

More "happy" pictures jumped out at him as he turned pages. Each picture revealed a side that Lily had never shown anybody at school before; a bright and cheerful side that was probably extinguished because of…_ Because of what? _James pondered. 

He turned the page again and this time, the atmosphere of the last few pictures wasn't visible in the new picture. For one, it was the only photograph so far that was obviously developed by wizards, since its subjects were moving. It was a picture of Lily in fourth year. He recalled the Head Boy and Girl's sudden suggestion to take pictures of all the different year levels. Aside from some Slytherins whose expressions were permanently sour, Lily was the only one who wasn't smiling in the photo. And she was wearing the same haunted look that she was famous for—the look that, if diminished, would most likely make her well-liked by others.

The other pictures were pretty much the same as that. There was an occasional Muggle photo where Lily was with Muggle children James didn't know, and she didn't look any happier than her fourth year snapshot. When he flipped through the last page, he found a few more pictures that had ran out of pages to put in and a letter. 

He glanced at the pictures first—they contained only two people: Lily and the blonde girl who looked about a year younger than her. Unlike in the earlier happy family photos, the blonde girl had a stony expression on her face, and on Lily's was the most sorrowful countenance James had ever seen. The last thing he looked at was the letter, which was written in crude childlike writing.

_Freak,_

Don't think that just because I am sending you this letter, I already forgive you. I hate you! It's all your fault that mum and dad died, you freaky witch! The social worker only forced me to write this stupid note to "reinforce family ties." Family ties, ha! There aren't any family ties anymore, thanks to you! You ruined everything, and don't try to deny it. I hope everyone in that orphanage you were sent to know how much of a backstabbing killer you are and make the rest of your life miserable! You deserve punishment and suffering more than anybody else.

Mum and dad's funeral is on September 7. But I bet you're not coming, are you? No, you'll be too busy doing silly magic in that freak school of yours, not caring that it's YOUR bloody fault that our parents are dead. They were always so proud of you, saying what a perfect little angel you are, how smart and bright their little witch is, and look where it got them! I'm not saying that I'm jealous of you—who would want a freak for a sister? I loved mum and dad, and after you disappeared to your school I thought we were finally going to get the peace we desperately needed without you. But no, they keep on saying how brilliant you are for being a witch. I hope you're happy. They were always there for you and were happy for you, but you threw their love away and traded it with the deaths they didn't deserve. 

I personally think it's you who deserves to die, and if God decides to end your unworthy life then don't count on anybody coming to visit your tomb except your other freak friends. That is, if you still have some after they find out that you were the reason our parents were killed.

I disown you as a sister. May the hottest corners of hell be reserved just for your pitiless soul, you heartless bitch. 

~Petunia

James dropped the letter, shocked. Lily's sister wrote this? It was the cruelest thing anyone could say. Just because their parents died, Petunia blamed it on Lily. For some reason, he had the urge to find that sister and tell her off for making Lily feel guilty. He couldn't explain it, but somehow he knew that Lily didn't have any part in her parents' deaths. 

He examined the letter again, and for the first time noticed that the ink of the handwriting was blurred in some parts, as if the receiver of the letter had cried all over it upon reading the message. It was obvious that Lily had cried when she read this—who wouldn't? Even he would feel deeply hurt if someone he loved accused him of someone's death when he knew perfectly well that he was innocent. 

As quietly as he could, he slipped back the photos and the letter into the photo album and positioned it under the bed so that it would look like it had been untouched. There was a sound of rushing water from inside the bathroom—coming from the shower. 

Thinking that he probably wouldn't get another chance, he crept back to the door silently and slipped out, shutting it soundlessly behind him. He walked on autopilot, the previous events causing more thoughts to invade into his head, that it took him five minutes before being aware that he was already standing in front of his unlocked dormitory door. 

When he stepped inside, Sirius was already asleep. He tossed the loofah into Sirius' trunk and dropped down onto his own bed.

Thanks to Lily Evans, he was in for another sleepless night.

*****  

**AN – **Sorry if this chapter is short—but I realized that after my exams (December 16-18) my school's gonna come up with the intramurals… (Dec. 19 & 20) then I have to go crazy wrapping gifts and on the Christmas break I have to go to the province. So I have to write another chapter now coz I don't have any time to do it later on…so don't be mad at me if this sucked. Whatever you think of this chapter, tell me! Click the Go button! I gave up an hour of studying to finish this… the other half of the studying time pretty much consists of daydreaming ^_^; I swear, studying would bore the pants off you. I don't advise anybody to do it (gets whacked in the back of the head) Ow! OK mom, I'll go back to reading now… *grumble* 

~All work and no play will bore you to your death day,

   Dimantrien ;P


	4. Mind Your Own Business

Out of Her Shell 

**By Dimantrien**

**Chapter 4: Mind Your Own Business**

_No. Not again. Not this again._

_She stood in the open field alone. Dusk was falling ever darker into the horizon. The wind was crying out about something…something terrible, something horrible._

_Something that would torment her forever._

_She didn't know it then. Every once in a while she needed time to be alone. Sometimes she wondered… _Do I really fit in? Or do I belong somewhere else…perhaps…

Another world?

It wasn't her family's fault. In fact, they were very proud of her powers. Well, almost everyone. Her sister…they had been getting along well until that time. Until that time when the letter from her school arrived.

Tears slipped down her cheeks. Why? Why couldn't they go back to how they used to be? Why did her sister hate her all of a sudden, when only years ago they were the closest people to each other? Why? Why indeed…

Of course, her parents were perfectly oblivious to the sibling rivalry. It wasn't even rivalry. She didn't hate her sister, while in her sister's case it was the complete opposite. It was so unfair… 

How she wished that she would get that sisterly bond back.

She would gladly have traded everything, even her powers, just so her sister wouldn't hate her ever again. Especially not for this. 

She still stood there, alone and desperate. Only the wind came to comfort her, to dry her tears and caress her pale cheeks. It flew around her, tossing her red hair, sharing her sorrow. It was her only solace, the wind. She almost burst into more tears at the irony. Such a kind thing…the only part of nature she could rely on…and yet, it was so erratic… She didn't have the power to call to it whenever she cried. It just came…sometimes, when her sorrow was at its bleakest…

And suddenly, in the soft whistling of her beloved wind, a scream pierced the night. Startled, she looked back, at the country house that she and her family were staying in for a week. The week before school started. 

She couldn't run. She couldn't save them. Her feet were glued to the ground. Terrified, she felt utterly helpless. There were more screams. A flash of green light came from inside the house. And then…

And then there was silence. The wind died.

It was not the calm and serene silence that she was used to. For a change, it was a silence that causes fear to flood into people's hearts…a silence that showed that bad things were about to happen…

And happen they did. Barely seconds later, a high-pitched laugh broke the silence, and something…a mark…hovered above the house. She gasped. A skull with a snake protruding from its mouth…the Dark Mark. She suddenly realized what had happened. No, it can't be… This…this isn't real… 

Or is it? That mark… It wasn't a joke. But…her parents…and her sister…

The mark continued to float above the house, glowing strangely in the darkness. Half an hour later a team of Ministry wizards on brooms swooped down on the house. Several gasped at the sight of the haunting mark. 

She huddled herself under a tree and shut her eyes. I can't believe this… I won't believe this… Her grief was beyond tears… She could not move. Shouts issued from the direction of the house. She couldn't imagine it… her family, they didn't deserve it…

She opened her eyes. A light was coming toward her. A figure appeared, holding a wand with its tip alight. The figure came neared and she saw that it was a woman. The woman extended her hand and smiled, though forcibly, as if she was trying to laugh in the midst of a loved one's funeral. "Come," the woman said. 

She did not move, did not speak. 

"It is better if…no, I suppose I can't keep it from you. You already know…" The woman looked uncomfortable. Her eyes pleaded for the girl huddled under the tree to say something.

She stirred. "My family. What happened to them?" Her voice was clear and strong, surprisingly so. She dared this woman to tell her the impossible…to say that…that…

"I'm sorry," the woman said quietly. "But your parents… They are dead."

It was the inevitable. Suddenly, she could not hold the tears any longer. She sobbed, the pain in her heart growing. It hurt. The area on her left chest… It hurt so badly…

The woman came closer and wrapped her arms around the girl, rocking her backward and forward. "I'm so sorry… We could not stop it…"

She cried, cried until no more tears were left. Between chokes and sobs she managed to ask a few more questions. "And m-my sister? What-what happened t-to, to Petunia?"

The woman continued to hug her. "She is safe, my dear… She got away before—"

The girl sobbed harder, stopping the woman from saying anything further.

"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have said that," the woman murmured. "But… She is safe. Would you like to see her?"

She nodded, her tear stained cheeks stinging as the wind returned in full force. It was not her gentle wind, but a strong and fierce one, a wind signaling a storm approaching. It was a sign of the summer ending, a sign of renewed sorrows, a sign of the worse that was yet to come. 

The two bowed to the mercy of the gale until they received the shelter of the country house. That house…the house that she would remember forever as the one where her parents were murdered…

Sobs louder than the passive girl's erupted from within the house. She could not bear to cry anymore, yet to see her sister in grief caused her to spill a few more tears. Her parents were dead. She could not deny it. But still… the pain in her heart was growing…

The woman opened the door. The scene inside was terrible. Ministry wizards were standing in the now cold living room, their heads bowed, their eyes on the sobbing girl sitting on the couch. When the red-haired girl came in, she stopped crying and looked up. A look of pure hatred came over her grieving features. 

"You!" she snarled, her voice still shaky from the recent events. "You…you did this… It's all your fault…" She burst into tears again, yet there was a spiteful gleam in her eyes as they looked at her older sister. 

"Now, dear, let us not act hostile with this matter," one wizard said gently. "Right now you two need to be together to help each other cope with your parents' deaths. It would be wise—"

"Shut up!" Petunia yelled at the wizard. "It's all her fault!" She jabbed a finger at her sister. "If she wasn't such a—such a freak, then mum and dad wouldn't have died! They didn't deserve this! Why did they have to die?! And it's all because…it's all because of YOU!!!" She stared pointedly at her sister and sobbed again. 

The red-haired girl's heart grew more painful at her sister's accusing words. "Petunia…please…I didn't do anything…"

"You freak! I don't ever want to see you again! You're the one who deserves death! Mum and dad…they were innocent! Why? Why them? Why did they have to die?!" 

"It isn't Lily's fault, Petunia," the woman beside Lily spoke up in the same gentle tone as the other wizard. "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is very cruel, cruel, yes, but powerful…"

"And why else would a nutcase murderer like that kill my parents? It's because of her! Because she's a witch! If—if everyone in my family was normal, this wouldn't have happened!!!"

"None of us know why he chose your parents," another witch said.

"No! You weren't here…I heard them! The murderer said…he said…"

"What did he say?" All the Ministry officials were looking grave now.

"He said 'Where is the girl?' I knew he was referring to the freak. My parents…they were willing to protect that—that witch! They were willing to risk their lives for her safety! He killed them when they refused to tell him where she was. I would have told him—I would have told him just to save my parents, but they told me to hide… they did not want me to be killed—to be killed too…" She sobbed harder, covering her face with her hands.

"No…" Lily whispered. "Why? Why was he looking for me?" 

The woman who had comforted her answered. "Your guess is as good as ours, Lily," she said softly. 

Petunia's sobs were the only sounds heard in the room, with the occasional "It's all your fault" and "Why did they have to die?" And for that moment, Lily did feel like she was responsible…like it was her fault that they were dead…

My fault… she thought. Please, Petunia, please don't cry. It's not me, is it? I'd never want them to get hurt... But…if it was really me…No…

No…she couldn't be responsible. Could she?

No…no… It can't be… No…no…

"NO!!!" Lily woke with a start. She looked around her. She was on her four-poster bed in Gryffindor Tower. She was safe. It was just a dream… just a nightmare…

She realized that it was already morning. The sun was starting to peek into the windows of the girls' dormitory. Thankfully, none of the other girls were awake yet.

As she always did when she woke up from a nightmare, she leaned over the side of her bed and reached for her photo album. She stopped before picking it up. It wasn't in the same position as she had left it…it was as if someone had looked at it when she wasn't there and hurriedly put it back. 

Shrugging, Lily picked it up anyway. Nah, no one would look at her photo album. Who would? She was the outcast. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with her. Much less tamper with her things. 

She always felt a deep sorrow when she looked at the pictures, but she couldn't help herself. A strange comfort always surrounded her as she remembered past memories… good memories, memories that weren't connected with her parents' deaths and the time when Petunia hated her the most. When she first attended Hogwarts, she had been an outcast ever since. She was too bitter with the lack of love her sister gave her, how she suddenly hated Lily all because of the fact that she was a witch. They were the best of friends before that, but no, it all had to change. Why did things always become worse? 

She snapped the album shut and hid it back under the bed. After going to the bathroom, dressing up and brushing her hair until it looked reasonably neat, she went down to the Great Hall for breakfast. 

It was always deserted when Lily came down to breakfast. It was another reason why people found her so weird; she always sat there all alone in the semi-dark (since the sun wasn't fully up yet) until other students came in. After six years, nobody had anything to say about her anymore. They had simply tired of hearing the same old "weirdness" stories of the outcast. Now she was just in the background, never noticed, never seen, almost as if she were really invisible. 

She liked it that way. It was better than being pitied, better than being jeered at for her strange ways. She hated pity. It never got anyone anywhere, and it always meant that you were the weaker person. If you cried, people pity you. And that meant that you were below them, since you let them see your weakness, and they visibly show that they are not as feeble as you because they are the ones comforting you. Being invisible offered her solace and left her to her own world devoid of either happiness or humiliation. But sorrow and grief…those were another matter.

She ate in silence, waiting for the other students to fill the quietness of the Hall with boisterous laughter and exchange of fresh gossip. At least another half hour had to pass until the early birds arrived.

It was because of this routine that she barely noticed another person entering the Hall earlier than usual. She didn't notice, really, until the person was right beside her and pulled up a chair to her left. She ignored the person, thinking that whoever he was, he was just a little too sleepy yet and didn't see her. After all, she was invisible... figuratively. 

"Hey," the person, a male to be precise, said.

She looked up and met the guy with a glare. Of course. It was the ever-popular James Potter, the prefect who had insulted her without a second thought. Probably here to start another fight or make her already miserable life worse. 

"What do you want?" she asked curtly, not bothering to throw in a simple "Hello." Why should she? The guy was an overlarge mocking bird. 

James flinched at her cold tone, but didn't go away nonetheless. "I just want to apologize for my behavior the other day. I knew that I must have offended you somewhat, and I'm really sorry if I was acting insensitive. It's just that I lost my temper, that's all." He looked at Lily, whose face was set as stone. He waited as if expecting her to answer.

"I see…" said Lily. "Well, is that all? You're free to leave now. You don't have to prove to me that you're a psychologically perfect rose by dragging yourself at the crack of dawn here."

James didn't pay any heed to this unfriendly remark. "Do you forgive me?" he asked then.

Lily rolled her eyes. "If you need any assurances, then yes, I do. Now will you leave?"

"You can't tell me to leave. You don't own this Hall," James said with a smile. Now that he understood why Lily was so cold toward others, he wasn't going to let her comments get to him.

Seeing that James wasn't making any move to leave, she turned back to her breakfast. "What a stubborn idiot. Trying to make himself look good," she muttered under her breath. Unknown to her, James could hear it.

"Is that really what you think? You may believe otherwise, but I'm not as superficial as you think I am. Just because I'm a prefect and all my friends are popular doesn't mean that I'm a mindless puppet who goes with what the crowd wants just to get all the people to like me," James remarked matter-of-factly.

At first, Lily seemed convinced with his words, but then she snorted. "It doesn't suit you," she said tonelessly.

"Excuse me?" James said, squinting.

Lily, again, rolled her eyes. "Your wiseass attitude, like you think you know everything about what's going on around here. Like you think that just because you can be popular and preach 'wise' stuff without even knowing what it's really about, you're on top of the world and everyone else is just an unworthy piece of grime on the sole of your shoe." She glared at him after finishing her last bite of bacon and eggs, grabbed her backpack and stood up. "And that's why I hate people like you." She walked away with her head down like it always was, but James knew that if she wasn't the stereotypical outcast that students made her to be, she would have held her nose high. 

James didn't really mind what she thought of him, because he knew that it was probably a product of her bitterness toward popular people.  Was it because she was jealous of them that she hated them so much? No, she didn't seem as shallow as that. Lily was the kind of person who was brilliant inside but hid it with a brick wall from others. 

But even if he was confusing himself with bothering to know all about a girl who was almost nonexistent to most of the other students, he was determined to lure her out of her shell. 

*****   

**AN – **Hey! Sorry if I didn't update quickly (if your updating standards are quicker than mine ^^;) but I was stuck in non-civilization for four whole days!!! In the province. Don't blame me, I couldn't watch cable TV there either! I missed all those episodes of Gensomaden Saiyuki!!! Waaaaaah….. Anyway (major mood swing), I don't know when the next chap is gonna be up, since I also have no idea what I'm supposed to write next (crazy me, I know) and I still have to update two more stories. I'm just begging you not to forget my humble ficcie while I'm trying to bully my mind into thinking of something brilliant to write (and failing miserably…) Review me! Like always, I'll update this before the other two if I think you like this one more than…the other two. Click the Go button! That's what it's for, to be clicked on whenever you hit the bottom of a page! Thanx to all who reviewed, especially **animegirl**, who supports all my stories! 

~Dimantrien ^_^


	5. There is a Reason

Out of Her Shell By Dimantrien 

**Chapter 5: There is a Reason**

After the incident at the Great Hall that morning, James decided to keep his distance from Lily, even though he wanted to help her. Yeah, so that was already twice that she affronted him. But he couldn't bring himself to be mad at her because she didn't deserve the way others treated her—not at all. And that letter from her sister… James still couldn't believe that Lily's own flesh and blood could loathe her that much, and for something that wasn't even her fault to begin with. Whenever he thought of that letter, it made him want to hit something. What if _he_ had a brother like that, a brother he loved but in turn hated him for it? It was bad enough to think about it—but if this was how it felt to just imagine having a sibling like that, then Lily's case had to be tons worse. Hers was the harsh reality. 

He was so deep in thought that he barely registered the fact that he had bumped into someone in the corridor and the assailant had toppled over onto the floor. Being the athlete that he was, he hardly budged, but the other person seemed to have come down on their bum hard. 

"Oh, sorry," he muttered, looking down to help up whoever ran into him, and saw that it was a mousy-looking fourth year girl. The girl was goggling at him through wide green eyes.

"Y-y-you're J-james P-p-p-potter, right?" she stuttered, as if she was in the presence of a celebrity. 

"Yeah," James said, frowning. Did the girl hit her head when she fell or something? She was acting really weird…

"Oh! I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msor…" the girl kept on saying sorry with her head bowed, apparently too focused in apologizing to look back at the person she was apologizing to. 

"Right… Um, it's okay, you can stop saying sorry now…" James said uneasily, but the girl continued her "I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry—" act. James shrugged and backed away.

"Must make you feel good, huh?" a voice behind him said snidely. He knew who its owner was before he even turned around.

"And why would it?" he replied coolly to a stone-eyed Lily. 

"The fact that every girl you bump into in the halls turns into a complete idiot just by looking at you. You must have already gotten the idea that you're the hottest heartthrob in Hogwarts because of that, right? I mean, if you asked her to jump into a moat filled with starving crocodiles for you, she'd probably do it." Lily nodded in the direction of the still apologizing (And frozen in that bowing position) girl. 

James raised an eyebrow. "You've gotten more talkative these days, Lily," he remarked, smiling slightly. He couldn't help but look amused as her cheeks reddened slightly in mortification that he had pointed out the impossible.

"For a good cause," she responded softly, yet her eyes were still a deep, ominous jade.

"A…good cause?" James asked, confused.

James thought he heard her mutter "Thicker than I thought." But Lily just smirked and said, "Why, to keep bigheaded people's egos in check, of course. What did you _think _it was, Pretty Boy?" 

James couldn't find an answer to that, which seemed to have amused Lily more. "Don't let the fame invade your brain more than it already has, Pretty Boy. Who knows, it just might overflow and replace whatever is left of your intelligence. It seems that you haven't quite mastered balancing the proportion of both, have you?" With another snicker, she walked past him and shook her head slightly as her eyes fell on James' admirer. 

He stared after her, not knowing if he should come after her and tell her he knew everything, or get his wand out and throw a hex at her, or…hold himself back and do nothing at all. The last one was initiated; though it was only because on-the-spot decisions weren't his strength, so not doing anything was what he did best during times like this. Even though he was the down-to-earth person that he was, a recurring thought occurred in his head, the one similar to what he was thinking when he met Lily for the first time—during their fight. As much as he hated to admit it, there was a tiny part of him that was the same shallow person Lily made him out to be. But just a _tiny _part.

Three strikes. In superficial terms, Lily Evans was definitely out. 

*****  

All these idiots. Couldn't they be any more shallow? Am I the only one around here who takes reality checks to keep myself respectable to society? Lily fumed as she went by yet another blonde Hufflepuff bimbo who was shoving a fashion magazine under her equally ditzy friend's nose. If she turned to the right, Thumbhead Jock Ravenclaw was flexing his bulging muscles to a bunch of skimpy-clothed fifth years who were drooling and swooning unattractively. West of her was the Geek that Time Forgot, who was snorting and looked on the verge of hyperventilating as he goggled at his crush. When she opened a Charms classroom door there was a couple who were in a heated make-out session. She figured that if she had conjured up a bed for them, they'd be even happier. 

Morons. Stupid, morally uneducated, dim-witted retards. She was surrounded. 

A fleeting flashback passed through her mind, try as she might to push it to the very back of her brain. No such luck. It was always there, whenever she glanced at another superficial scene and she got the urge to run to the nearest bathroom and puke her guts out because of the grossness of humanity. 

That incident that made her believe, for even just a single moment, that the world wasn't as superficial as she thought it was. 

James Potter. Who does he think he is? But Lily knew very well who he was. He was Mister Ace Quidditch Star Player, Transfiguration Genius, Prince Charming, and Every Teacher's Best Friend. He was, in everyone's opinion but Lily's, swoon-worthy, wacky, fun, lovable, intelligent, popular…and on and on and on. Yet since after her fight with him, she saw another side, a side she didn't believe was possible to exist. 

She heard someone behind her squeal about something or other that was in Witch Weekly. Lily rolled her eyes and stormed on into her Transfiguration classroom. Never mind that she was practically fifteen minutes early and the room was deserted. Better here than out there. 

After a few minutes, she looked at her watch impatiently. It told her that she still had ten minutes to wait. That was still early by most students' standards of punctuality, but just then the door opened. 

"Shhh. Don't make a lot of noise or he'll catch you." 

"Me? What about you? You were the one who said 'Try dumping the Boil-Builder Brew on the top of his over-inflated head.'"

"Well yeah, but you were the one who actually did it."

"I did it because you wouldn't be able to since you were busy finding the countercurse for the big ears that Malfoy gave you!" (big ears inspired by the Ele-Rat. Hehe. ;P)

"Moony, that isn't the point. The fact is, you were the one who dumped it on his head, which means that you were at fault, which means that you're the one he's mad at, which means that you'll be the person that that prat will report to McGonagall, which means that you'll be the one to get a detention—"

"Shut up, I get it already. I'm not a retard like him, you know."

"Right. I like to get my point across. So, is that enough proof that you deserve the detention and not me?"

"So that's why you were babbling like an idiot. Some friend you are."

Lily cleared her throat loudly. The two boys (you know them already ._.) jumped at the sound and turned around to face her, looking like deer caught in headlights.

"Ah… H-hello, Lily," Sirius stammered, his face a little pale.

"Um…it's…er…nice to see you. Isn't it a little…early for you to-to go inside the classroom?" Remus said, looking a little nervous himself.

Lily raised her eyebrows at them. "I could say the same for you," she responded noncommittally. 

"Oh, well… McGonagall would probably transfigure us in class if we're even a single second late again," Sirius said. He eyed her shiny prefect badge warily. 

Lily wasn't interested in small talk, and fortunately, neither were they. Sirius and Remus crept into their own seats at the back of the classroom, two seats away from Lily. Sitting at the very back gave them the advantage of almost always going unnoticed whenever they planned 'harmless' pranks on their fellow students. Lily's only reason for sitting where she did was because the back of the classroom offered her some seclusion from the rest of the Gryffindors. 

Sirius and Remus started talking in low tones, as if they were afraid that conversing loudly in the presence of Exile Evans was a dangerous thing to do. Lily rolled her eyes.

She wouldn't have minded if they were early if this was four days ago. Heck, she would have ignored them completely if this was four days ago. But now she couldn't, because they reminded her of James Potter. And James Potter reminded her of the possibility that maybe some people like him—some people like them, weren't as shallow as she thought they were. Which was absolutely absurd, because they would never change. Not in her point of view.

Their other classmates started coming into the classroom, as boisterous as usual. Lily just glanced at them as they entered the classroom gossiping and laughing about something or other. A feeling inside her—something she hadn't felt in years—resided. She remembered back when she still lived as a Muggle and she had friends in school… 

She caught a flash of black when her eyes had unfocused slightly, reliving past memories. It brought her back to reality. James was strolling into the room, slapping Remus Lupin on the back and saying something that probably concerned what Sirius and Remus were talking about earlier. 

She didn't realize that she was staring at him, until he looked up and looked straight at her. He flashed her a smile.

A smile that she returned with a death glare. What was that? It's just those stupid memories. They put my mind out of focus, she reasoned. I shouldn't be thinking about them… I shouldn't relive old times. It will just hurt…all over again… 

It was stupid to go down memory lane, especially since thinking about happy times in the past only made her think of the worst things in her past. It was stupid because she realized that she was once like these people—that she was once clamoring with her friends for the latest fashion mags and squealing over pictures of their favorite celebrities. 

And James, who waltzed into her isolated disposition all sunny and positive that he could cure anything, even her views of the world, was trying to turn her back into the old Lily. 

Just another reason to hate James Potter.

*****  

"So, Prongs, where's that loofah you nicked from the girls' dorm the other day?" Sirius inquired in the boys' dormitory, analyzing all the materials they would need for their new prank on his bed.

"Right in your trunk with the others," James said wearily. They were supposed to transfigure a pillow into five apples that day. It was more complex than previous lessons, where they were to transfigure an object into just one other object. James, who was the best in Transfiguration, managed to do it with only a little bit of trouble, but the others didn't fare quite as well, except for Lily Evans. Since they were the only ones who could do it, McGonagall had made them demonstrate it in front of the whole class. Then she told them to teach the others. James knew that Lily wasn't happy with that particular instruction, since she preferred being alone as much as possible. 

Why, though? A voice at the back of his brain asked. Why did she always want to be alone? Surely Lily also longed to have a friend, someone she could talk to and have fun with, someone who would keep her company, someone she could trust…

Trust. That word rang a bell. As far as James knew, Lily Evans didn't trust anybody. Maybe, he thought, maybe the only reason she doesn't have friends is because she doesn't trust anyone. He recalled all their past conversations. Even though he summoned every ounce of friendliness and congeniality he possessed when she was in his presence, she still snapped at him. 

"Hey, Prongs."

How could he make her trust him? Maybe he should tell her that he knew about her past? Nah, then she'd probably just get mad at him for snooping through her things. He'd certainly get an earful from her, not to mention a detention from McGonagall once Lily reported his sneaking into the girls' dormitory.

"Prongs?"

But perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea… If he told her that he knew what she felt, she might open up to him or something… But it was going to be tricky, since at first she would probably be really angry at him. Getting Lily to come out of her shell was harder than he'd thought…

"Prongs!"

James snapped to attention. "Huh? What?"

Sirius shook his head. Remus, who James didn't notice had entered the room, was sitting beside him on his bed. 

"Where is your mind these days? Somehow I have a feeling that a particular thing is preoccupying you…or maybe it's a particular person?" Sirius hinted with a smirk. 

James rolled his eyes. "Stop referring to whatever your wild imagination is conjuring up for you," he said. 

"You mean, it's not a girl?" Sirius asked, disappointed.

"No," James said. But he knew that it was a girl, because Lily Evans definitely was. He had a feeling that if he mentioned her to Sirius, he would probably say, "Lily who?" and tell him he'd never heard of a student like that in his five and something-months in Hogwarts.

"—and that's all that you're going to do. Any questions, Prongs?" Sirius concluded, looking at James. James just stared back blankly.

"What? Sorry, I didn't catch what you just said…" James trailed off when Sirius gave him a look.

His best friend didn't say anything for a while. "Are you sure you're not thinking about a girl, James?" Sirius asked finally, surveying James as if to analyze his features to get something out of him.

"Positive," James lied firmly. "It's just…the prank. How are we supposed to conceal it from the teachers?" 

Remus and Sirius exchanged knowing looks with each other. "It's a girl," Remus said with a grin.

"Obviously," Sirius said with an equally mischievous smile.

"It's not," James protested.

"Then what is it?" Sirius challenged smugly. James couldn't come up with a lie fast enough.

"It's a girl," Sirius and Remus chorused.

"Oh, shut up," James mumbled.

"So, who is she, Prongs? Anyone we know?" Sirius prodded teasingly. 

"As if you don't already know the whole female population of Hogwarts, since you've probably snogged with all of them at least once already," James snapped.

"Hey, I'm not that bad!" Sirius said. "Maybe third to seventh years, but not the first and second years. Too young…"

"Sirius, you're a sixth year," Remus reminded, open-mouthed. "You snog with seventh years?!"

"Well, yes," Sirius sniffed. "Why? One-year age differences are a trivial matter."

James snorted. "You snog with seventh years ever since we were thirteen."

"Thirteen?!" Remus exclaimed, shocked.

"I did not—How did you know that?" Sirius asked suspiciously.

James smiled smugly. "Well, you were—"

"Enough of this. Weren't we talking about Jamesie's mystery girl earlier? Why did we change the subject?" Sirius interrupted, glaring at James. 

"Oh yeah. I forgot," Remus admitted.

"Will you just drop the girl thing—Hey where's Wormtail?" James said quickly.

"Probably mistaken the main staircase at the west wing with the one in the entrance hall again," Remus guessed with a shrug. 

Sirius shook his head. "After almost six years in this school, and after creating the Marauder's Map that has every passage in Hogwarts imaginable, that guy still can't tell the difference between a one-way corridor and an intersection," he said. "Wormtail's so weird." Then he had a look on his face that looked as if he was recalling something. "Speaking of weird… did you tell James about our little run-in with the school outcast, Moony?" 

Remus shook his head. "What was so important about it?" 

"Are you talking about Lily Evans?" James asked, his eyebrows raised.

"Lily…something, maybe Evans, yeah," Sirius agreed. "We thought we were toast. If Remus hadn't started babbling about our fight with the Slytherins, we wouldn't have almost given away something that a prefect's worth reporting."

"Lily's a prefect?" James said incredulously. His two friends rolled their eyes.

"Duh, where were you since last year? Don't you see her during prefect meetings or something?" Sirius said.

"I'm starting to seriously think that our friend has a mental problem, Padfoot," Remus said, barely able to keep a straight face on.

"If not temporary blindness syndrome," Sirius added in a taunting tone. James scowled at him. 

"You two sure go out of your way to mock me, don't you?" he said sarcastically.

"That's what friends are for," Remus said with a smile.

Sirius, instead, patted James on the back. "It's not an issue, Prongs. Honestly, I don't blame you. Nobody ever noticed Exile Evans since the first time she set foot in this castle. I even wonder sometimes how she maintains discipline to the lower levels—they don't seem to see that she exists either," he commented mock solemnly.

A strange anger seemed to stir up inside James as Sirius said that. "Stop talking about her like she's an invisible creature or something," he snapped. Sirius recoiled.

"Whoa. Sorry, buddy. I didn't mean to…offend you," Sirius said uneasily. "Why are you so touchy about Evans' status anyway? She has nothing to do with you. Unless…" His eyes widened. "Unless you like her…"

James felt his cheeks flushing slightly. Where did Sirius get his crazy ideas?  "I do not like her," he objected. "I just can't see why people keep treating her like she's nothing. She hasn't done anything wrong."

"Yeah right. Not counting the millions of times she bites people's heads off when they attempt to be friendly to her. Face it, Prongs. The girl is a bitter wreck. Somewhere along the line of her life she'll end up being an acrimonious old maid," Sirius answered.

"But why doesn't anyone consider why she acts that way? Why don't they bother trying to find out what made her act so bitter towards others?" James argued. "You don't just get up one morning and decide that you hate the world for no reason." Of course, he already knew the reason and shouldn't bother asking these questions to people who obviously knew less about her than he did, but he wanted Sirius and Remus to at least act reasonably towards her. 

Remus shrugged. "I don't know. But I have heard a few people telling me they tried to ask Lily those questions, and got a scathing reply in return, if not a slap." 

"But didn't they stop to think about what the reason is behind her actions?" James asked quietly.

"Why should they? If she slaps them, what logical reason should they hold onto to believe that she's got a problem and care about her?" Sirius shot back.

"Haven't you considered thinking that her problem's so deep that she wouldn't try trusting anyone with it?" James stared defiantly at his friends. Remus just looked confused, while Sirius was getting frustrated.

"Why are you suddenly supporting the outcast, Prongs? Why do you care?" Sirius asked after a long, awkward silence.

James was silent for a moment. "Because it's about time somebody did." 

*****  

**AN – **Sorry if Sirius sounds like a jerk in this chap, but he'll get better! He is my fave character after all…but that personality suits him better than…say…Remus. And though it's more applicable to that scum Peter, he deserves only a small role in my fic, and I don't want him saying something smart that would be included in their debate. Doesn't suit his pea-sized brain at all. This chap was finished on December 31, 2002 so…HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! YAY!!! Fireworks! Explosions! Media Noche! Food! Food! Fooooooood!!!!!!!!!! Losing a finger or two—! Hey, where did that come from?! That reminds me, be careful with fireworks! You wouldn't want your hand ending up looking like Wormtail's…a horrible prospect. Don't say bad words, Dimantrien. Happy New Year again to everybody! Especially my reviewers! You are all so nice! You even made me put more exclamatory sentences than usual! I'm not usually like that… Give me some feedback, OK? The start of 2003 wouldn't be complete without some new reviews! (Hint hint) Positive reviews, that is…;P 


	6. Asking the Unexpected

Out of Her Shell 

**By Dimantrien**

**Chapter 6: Asking the Unexpected**

"Right then. Before we dismiss this day's prefect meeting, I want you guys to start thinking up some ideas for the Christmas Ball. Last year was a disaster—somebody mistook a crate of Filibuster's Miniature Fireworks with the box of candles we were supposed to use to trim the Christmas trees. The Great Hall was exploding all over when Flitwick performed a Lighter Charm to light their fuses all at once…it was a nightmare…" Their Head Boy, Dillon Ninian, rubbed his temples, as if the memory of the incident still brought a headache to him.

James tried to keep a smirk at bay as he listened to Dillon's laments. He and Sirius had been responsible for the "accidental" switching of crates. What was the big deal? At least they had an early start to the New Year. 

There were nods and murmurs all around before Dillon called it a day. "Guess that's all worth announcing. You're all dismissed." Prefects of all years and Houses exited the room. Last of all was Lily, who had her head down. James wondered why he never noticed her presence there before. Maybe it was all part of her being an outcast. He quickly caught up with her. 

"What do you want now?" she asked coldly when she heard his pattering footsteps just behind her. 

James grinned. "Just because I happen to be walking in the same direction as you because I'm also a Gryffindor doesn't mean that I want something from you," he responded, now walking alongside her. Lily quickened her pace. So did James.

"So, got any ideas for the dance?" James inquired, attempting to strike up a conversation. He practically had to speed-walk to keep up with her.

"Why are you trying so hard to talk to me? Don't you have anything better to do, Pretty Boy?" she demanded with a scowl. "Pretty Boy" seemed to be her permanent alias for him. 

"Well, now that you mention it, I do have an appointment with my press agent right about now, but I told him I was going to have an interview with my beautiful Mystery Woman," he joked, trying to put some levity into the chat. 

Lily didn't seem to find his antics funny. "You're just wasting your time. I have no interest in talking to you, and I don't know why you're suddenly paying attention to me. Whether it's a bet or a dare from your friends or not, I am not going to be the object of your amusement if you're thinking along those very lines." She gave him a cool glare.

James shook his head. "Nope, sorry to disappoint, but I haven't been betting since Sirius won our bet that Snape was going to make the honor roll last year. I guess I underestimated the Walking Slimeball's intelligence," he said thoughtfully, scratching his chin. 

He thought he saw an amused smirk on Lily's face but when he looked at her closely she was wearing her normal scowl. "Why won't you leave me alone?" she asked in an annoyed tone.

"Because you need a new friend to make your life a lot more exciting," James said without skipping a beat.

"Are you telling me that I'm boring?" Lily said tonelessly, though her face made it clear that she wasn't expecting him to say a wise answer anyhow.

"Not exactly, but you _do_ need a more interactive social life. Don't you ever get claustrophobic when you stay too often in your dormitory with no one to keep you company but your books and stuff?" James pointed out.

Lily shook her head. "I don't have friends. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you should leave." There was a note of finality in her voice. 

"Why don't you try making some friends, Lily?" James asked.

Lily sighed in resignation, giving up trying to make him go away. "If I answer three of your dumb questions, will you leave me alone?"

James grinned again. "Depends."

"I guess this can't get any worse than it already is," Lily muttered. "Fine. Fire away."

"First thing I'll ask you is… Why don't you try making friends?" James repeated his earlier question.

"Nobody wants to be friends with an outcast," Lily answered softly. 

James shook his head. "No. I'm talking way back when we were in first year. You never tried to get close with anyone, and you didn't talk to anyone much. How come?"

Lily's eyes narrowed into slits, just as James predicted. "It's none of your business."

James just nodded, thinking about the pictures in her album and the letter from her sister. "See, that's what's wrong. You're afraid of opening up to another person because you don't know how to trust them. That's a part of making friends, Lily. You'll never get another person to trust you if you don't do likewise."

Lily glared at him. "I'm not here to ask you about your know-how on friendship," she retorted. "Now ask the rest of your questions so you can get the hell outta here."

James ignored her tone and looked up at the ceiling for a moment, thinking hard. "OK. Why do you always snap at people who attempt to be friendly with you?" he said finally, thinking of what Sirius and Remus said yesterday. 

Lily was silent for a moment. "Ask another question."

"But—"

"_Another _question, Pretty Boy," she said firmly with a glower. 

James sighed. "Fine. But since you didn't answer that one, this is question number two. Um… what made you act the way you do?" He already knew the answer to that, but he wanted to see if she would trust him enough to tell him herself.

"It's really personal. I can't tell you," she said, her voice softening, as if she was suddenly reminded by a sorrowful memory. Which, James concluded, she probably was. Lily kept her eyes trained on the ground as they walked.

"Oh. Sorry," he murmured. _It wasn't a good idea to ask that,_ he realized. Lily looked up abruptly.

"It's all right," she responded in a distant, melancholy tone. Somehow it was a change from her biting voice and bitter personality. Her face looked less tough and was replaced by the mask of a depressed person. James was reminded of how pretty she really was, if she smiled a little now and then. He would get to that part…once he made her trust him.

"I'm running out of questions. Any chance of you telling me what your favorite stuff are and when you have your birthday?" he said in a more upbeat voice. 

Lily's eyes lost some of their dark gloom, but she still didn't smile. "If you did, then that would be over three questions already."

"Aw, c'mon. You can't limit the number of questions in an interview," James countered. 

"But this isn't an interview," Lily shot back. 

"Interview, casual interrogation, all the same," James said lightly. 

Lily rolled her eyes but looked like she was loosening up a little. She didn't seem to be annoyed with him anymore, at least. "You've got two more questions left. No more, no less," she confirmed. 

"You're no fun, Miss Misanthrope," James said, faking a disappointed sigh. 

Lily smirked. "If I was fun, I wouldn't be an outcast," she said matter-of-factly.

"Good point." 

"Whatever. Hurry up."

"How does it feel to be an outcast? Don't you ever long for a friend?" James said.

"Those are two questions. Does that mean you don't have any more?"

"Nope. It's a package deal. It's counted as one."

"Cheater."

"Paranoia freakazoid."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Being an outcast isn't so bad. At least this way, I get a lot of privacy. Once people stopped talking about how weird I was, they never bothered me anymore. Having a boring and quiet lifestyle doesn't give you much chance to be gossiped about. I like keeping a low profile. And about friends… I guess… I wouldn't mind having one." 

"Really? But—OK, so you don't want to answer this one so it's not counted—why do you still don't act friendly with others who try talking to you?" James asked, confused.

Lily raised an eyebrow at him. "Haven't you been listening to me earlier? I didn't even want to talk to you because I thought you were just like them, who just went up to me for a bet or something. You don't look like you do, but then again…"

"I swear I'm not tricking you into telling me about yourself for any reason other than my own lively curiosity," James mock-vowed with one arm held up pledge-style. "So you're afraid of making friends because you think they're all just trying to trick you and leave you once they win their bet?"

Lily nodded.

"Hmmm… Well, I guess that's it. I know what to ask for my third question now," James said happily. He said the words just as they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Good. Shoot," Lily said, finally relieved, thinking that he was going to scram as soon as she answered his last question.

"Can _I_ be your friend?"

*****  

Lily stepped back, startled. "Come again?" she asked, blinking. Was he serious or something?

James laughed. "Can—I—be—your—friend?" he repeated purposefully slowly. "It's allowed to ask that, right? It's just a yes or no question. Simple as that."

Lily shook her head. "I don't know…"

"Come on, Lily. What have you got to lose? Nothing bad could come out of an attempt to finally have some friends, right?" James winked at her.

"N-no. It's just that… You already know that I hate popular people," she said. She tried glaring at him again, but…it wouldn't come. Somehow, her emotions _didn't_ want her to hate James like the others. And like he said, what did she have to lose? What was she so afraid of? 

"Ah. That's not a reason. There are lots of popular people, and we all have different personalities. You probably were just unfortunate enough to come across the most big-headed and bitchiest ones," James commented. 

She almost smiled at the remark. _Wait a minute… I can't smile at that. He doesn't amuse me. He _can't_ amuse me. He's just a superficial jock… _But another part of her was objecting. He didn't look like he was like them. And he certainly didn't act like them. 

"So…friends?" James said, staring at her expectantly.

_What have you got to lose? _his words repeated in her brain. She couldn't think of an answer to that. 

For the first time in years, Lily Evans smiled. "Yes," she responded. 

James' brown eyes lit up. "Really?" 

Lily nodded. "Yeah."

James did some sort of victory dance in the middle of the corridor, looking completely ridiculous. Lily's smile widened. He looked just that…ridiculous. 

"You know, you should smile more often. You look beautiful when you do," James remarked when he caught her smiling at him. 

"Laying it a little thick on the flattery, aren't you?" she countered, raising an eyebrow. But she felt her cheeks redden slightly.

James shrugged. "Suit yourself. Scowling isn't good for your face. It takes more muscles to frown than to smile. You could end up having facial wrinkles ten years early."

"You and your wiseass remarks," Lily said, rolling her eyes. She felt lighter than she had in years, though, and she gave James credit for that. It felt good to finally talk to someone without having to force herself to say something rude just so they'd leave her alone…

"Are we going to stop bickering like kids and say the password to enter the Tower now?" James asked her.

"I'm capable, but I don't know if you are," Lily said with a straight face. James punched her on the arm playfully. 

"Er.. they're supposed to change the password in the last Friday of the month so…" James scrunched his eyebrows. "What day is it?"

"The last Friday of November," Lily answered.

"Ah… I guess I forgot," James said, staring up at the Fat Lady, who was waiting for them to say the password impatiently.

"Well? Aren't you coming in?" she asked, peeved.

Lily shook her head and opened the notebook she kept for prefect meetings. She flipped to the back of the notebook where she kept the passwords. "It's here somewhere. The password's—"

"What?" James asked.

Lily pointed to the last word down the list. "Amity." 

The Fat Lady swung forward to admit them. 

*****  

Sirius, Remus and Peter were sitting in their usual armchairs by the fire. They were waiting for James to come back from his prefect meeting so that they could plot on some new pranks or get together to look over the Marauder's Map to see if they hadn't added a new secret passage they discovered recently. This was their routine every Friday, since it was the last day of classes for the week. The problem with Friday get-togethers was James' prefect meetings which happened to fall on the same day. The same day for the rest of the school year. 

Sirius was the one who objected to moving their meeting to a Saturday, because he always had dates on Saturday. -_- And since he was the one who thought of the best pranks (the others were responsible for the researching and the organizing) it was pretty much useless to do the meetings without him. 

"Where _is_ he?" the latter asked impatiently to Remus. "I thought prefect meetings ended at 8:30. It's almost nine, for Merlin's sake!"

"Sirius," Remus said, "You've just been to the kitchens to eat extra dessert a minute ago. You haven't waited that long, so get a grip."

Sirius scowled. "That's not the point. The point is he's supposed to be here by quarter to nine, and it's five minutes past that—"

He abruptly stopped once he saw James clambering over the portrait hole. 

"Prongs! There you are!" Sirius cried. "Now get over here. You're five minutes, thirty-six seconds, and seven hundred and twenty-three milliseconds late."

James looked surprised. "Since when have you been a pincher for punctuality, O All-Time Winner of the Tardiness Award in Hogwarts?" 

Sirius grinned. "Schoolwork is different. I'm always on time for important things." 

"He was four minutes late," Peter spoke up behind him, earning a glare from Sirius.

James moved away from the portrait hole. Sirius noticed someone just behind him. His eyes widened when he saw that it was Lily Evans.

"Hurry up, Prongs, what's keeping you?" Peter called, obviously not spotting Lily. He only did when Lily herself entered the common room and said something to James. "What's _she _doing with you?" he asked without thinking, surprised. 

James just shrugged and smiled at them. "She's a friend. And said friend has some homework to do so I'm ready for our weekly get-together now." He gestured at Lily who was already heading for the girls' staircase. Sirius noticed a look of slight fear on her face. James couldn't see it because Lily had her back on him.

Sirius shook his head as James plopped down on his seat. "Do my ears deceive me, or has Prongs here just said that he and Lily Evans are friends?" he asked Peter and Remus.

Peter nodded vigorously. "Yeah, he said 'She's a friend—"

"I _know _that he said that, Pete, I was just stressing that James did the impossible," Sirius interrupted, eliciting a good-natured chuckle from Remus, who was looking at a very baffled Peter. 

James looked at his best friend wearily. "Come off it, not this again. Honestly, why do you guys believe that anybody who has been stamped out of the social hierarchy inevitably stays in exile from anyone even remotely included in the 'in' crowd? Lily can't be alone forever, right?" 

"But you're not 'remotely included in the 'in' crowd.' You're practically at the top of the social ladder," Sirius objected. "Do you have any screws loose lately, Prongs? She—is—an—outcast. And outcasts _like_ being alone. They like being isolated from the extroverts. If they didn't, then they wouldn't make an effort to keep away from other people, would they?" 

"Come on, Padfoot. James probably has a good reason for being Lily's friend. I'm sure his intentions were good," Remus stated. Good old Remus. Always the sensible one. Always considerate and understanding. Now why couldn't Sirius be like that? ^_-

"The key word being 'probably.' And _good _intentions? The best of intentions that any of us could muster to someone who is barely noticed by most is if we had something in it for us," Sirius scoffed.

"That's what Lily's so afraid off, Sirius. She doesn't want to make friends because she doubts if anybody wanted to be her friend for real, or just tricks her so that they'll win some sort of bet or dare from their friends," James said.

Remus nodded. "That makes sense. Maybe that was why she was always rude to people who were trying to butter her up for their own reasons. She saw right through them." 

"Exactly. Now, Rem, if you're as reasonable and thoughtful as people say you are, are you willing to help me in making Lily believe that it's possible for her to mingle with other people without them tricking her?" James asked him.

Remus looked taken aback. "Well—I… I guess so. I mean, if you really believe that Lily wants to change…"

"She _does_ want to change. She just can't do it by herself. Somebody has to help her," James said firmly. 

Sirius waved his hand in the air, as if he was a student who wanted to prove a point to his teacher. "This is all so benevolent and altruistic, but before I partake in this charitable pronouncement, what exactly motivated you suddenly to lend a helping hand to Lily Evans?" He looked at James expectantly.

"You just don't understand, Padfoot. We don't just help others to get something in return. Sometimes there's just this little voice in the back of our head telling us to do something for nothing and we're willing to do it. Most of the time it's something that'll change our lives, or so people say," James explained.

"Ookay… So you're saying that giving Lily a hand in climbing up the social ladder is some kind of unexplainable divine intervention?" Sirius said, raising an eyebrow.

"What does divine intervention mean?" Peter asked.

"Divine intervention is another term for fate or destiny," Remus told Peter patiently. 

James sighed. "Sirius, if you're just making an effort to worm your way out of helping Lily, then you don't have to bother. I'm not forcing you into doing it."

"You're not?" Sirius raised his eyebrows.

"Nope. If you want to stay the way you are without making a difference in another person's life, then it's your choice. But I chose to listen to that little voice at the back of my head—"

"You're starting to freak me out, Prongs. Since when did you start dishing out clichés?" Sirius said worriedly. 

James just smiled knowingly. "It wouldn't be a cliché if it wasn't used often," he pointed out.

Peter raised his hand. "What does cliché m—" 

"You know what? Where you get all those put-downs to my questions is beyond me. I guess there's no stopping you in this. I might as well just jump in and join the joy ride," Sirius grumbled.

James smirked. "You're just saying that to cover up the fact that you're giving in, aren't you?" 

Sirius smiled sheepishly. "You know me too well. I'm sure this is going to spice up the rumor mill and keep the gossipmongers busy, but against my better judgment, I agree in helping you…er…what am I agreeing to help you with again?"

"Get Lily to stop being an outcast and make her trust in others more," James supplied.

"Oh yeah. That," Sirius nodded. 

"Good for you! Pete?"

Peter looked hesitant. "But—but Lily Evans looks really scary and I've heard she hexes whoever tries to force her into doing something that would pull her away from isolation," he whimpered, terrified. "What if—"

"Wormtail, you shouldn't be so gullible and believe every single piece of gossip that reaches you," Sirius lectured. 

"OK… But Sirius, you were the one who told me that," Peter answered.

"You what?" James glared at Sirius. 

"Eh…I…just-just heard it from one of my flings…" Sirius muttered vaguely to avoid being subjected to James' wrath. 

"See, Pete? That rumor isn't true at all! Besides, we're all in it now. You don't have any other choice," Remus said.

"Oh…oh…all right. I'll help you," Peter said resignedly. "What do we have to do?"

James nodded at Peter's agreement to join them. "First off, be her friend."

*****  

**AN – **I don't know if this chapter sucks. Writer's block is really getting to me. But I just decided to make James and Lily friends since this is already chappie six anyway. Besides, some people were commenting on Lily's harshness, so why not write about her other side and how she really does need and want a friend? Am I making sense? I still have to illustrate the dumb fable I wrote for school, and I suck at drawing… *grumble* Leave it to me to procrastinate and finish it at the last day of Christmas vacation… 


	7. Plan Underway

Out of Her Shell 

**By Dimantrien**

AN – Sorry if I didn't update in a while, writer's block, you know… and then there's school. I thank everyone who reviewed chappie 6, though! You've made my day. 

**Chapter 7: Plan Underway **

It was Wednesday afternoon, and Divination in the North Tower was in session. Practically all of the sixth-year Gryffindors were bored stiff of this subject, and it was a wonder that all of them attended the class. It was probably because Divination was the least of hassles in terms of homework, since all they had to do was guess and make up a lot of stuff in their predictions.

"Now, my dears, will one of you kindly explain to me what cafedomancy is?" Professor Trelawney, their young Divination teacher, asked.

"What's the use explaining something she already knows to her?" Sirius said sleepily, transferring a liquid that only he knew the contents of from a small vial to the porcelain cup they were going to use for their lesson. His drowsiness caused some of the liquid to spill onto the table, causing pink sparks to shoot up from it. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" James hissed, putting out the sparks with a wave of his wand. Professor Trelawney looked like she wouldn't even notice it if Sirius sang the national anthem in imitation of a frog. 

"Gee, Prongs, you've been jumpier everyday since you were appointed a prefect," Sirius pointed out.

James scowled. "I've been a prefect since _last year. _And anyway, I'm not concerned if the Dragonfly Diviner over there has anything to say about it, that's the potion we've been slaving over all week for our prank on Snape, and the prank'll be ruined if she confiscated it." He jabbed a hitchhiker thumb at the "Dragonfly Diviner."

Lily, who was sitting with them, recited the answer for Trelawney. Then she sat back down and fixed her gaze intently on the cup of coffee beans in her hands.

"Uh…Lily, you're not _seriously _into this divining thing, are you?" Sirius asked uncertainly. Lily's presence at their table was causing more than a few exchanged whispers amidst the classroom, which made him a little uncomfortable. Nonetheless, James was his friend and he _did _promise to help break the brick wall that stood firmly between Lily and the rest of the human race…

"Sirius," Remus suddenly whispered from far away, causing him to jerk up his head with a start. Professor Trelawney, looking like the overlarge insect that she wasn't, glared at him peevishly. 

"If you are ready to reenter the world of your fellow classmates, Mr. Black, then I insist that you tell us anything about the clairvoyant trance you obviously were in during the lapse of your contemplation," she almost snapped, though still in her thinks-she's-a-heck-of-a-Seer disposition. Obviously she couldn't get it through her way-too-perfumed mind that Sirius was just lost in his thoughts.

"Well, I was concentrating on my coffee mug and the bunch of beans in it, and I…ah…_foresaw_ that something very terrible is going to happen to-to…er… to my Potions quiz after this class," Sirius improvised, half-sarcastically, half-tentatively as he stumbled around for a made-up prediction. 

Professor Trelawney appeared delighted. "Excellent, Black! You may not be so attentive at times, but clearly this is a sign that your divining powers are improving! My dear, I can see a great future as a Seer for you…" she kept on going at this vein even as she walked away from their table.

"Seer, my ass," Sirius muttered, sliding lower in his chair as a few of the girls in the next table giggled. James smirked amusedly. 

Remus grinned. "I can just imagine you, Padfoot, wearing a bunch of beaded necklaces around your neck and a turban with a jewel in the middle on top of your head, looking deeply into a foggy crystal ball and blubbering on that you shall become Professor Trelawney's great apprentice in the art of magical guesswork and mystical auras—"

"Shut it," Sirius said. "Moony, you must be going bananas if you believe a single word of that far-sighted fraud's babble."

"Anyway, I thought your prediction on the Potions quiz was no joke… we're doing one on Animal Alteration," Peter piped up, shuddering slightly at the prospect. 

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Animal Alteration is a piece of cake, Wormtail. Don't worry, I'll slide you a few tips when the professor's looking the other way…"

Lily looked up from her coffee mug and the set of notes she had been furiously scribbling on for the past minute. "Excuse me, but are you saying that you're going to _cheat _on that quiz?" she asked, her eyes narrowed slightly.

Sirius looked at her disbelievingly. "What? You mean you've never cheated in a quiz?" he asked without thinking. 

"Well, _no_," Lily answered, her voice sarcastic. "Obviously. What are you thinking? If you get caught—"

"Lily, don't worry about it, he doesn't do it on a regular basis, you know. Besides, Peter's not doing too well in Potions lately and Sirius is just trying to help him. Even if he studied it wouldn't be the same as actually making the potion," Remus quickly stepped in.

"Remus, I'm a prefect. Whether it is reasonable or not it is still a form of cheating, and it's my job to report it." Lily looked pointedly at James. "And so should you."

James shook his head. "I know, Lily, it's supposed to be reported. But Peter really goes down in pieces in that subject—he can't even get a potion right during the countless times we made him do it for our pranks so that he'll learn…and if he flunks Potions then he's going to be in trouble."

"But still—"

"Come on. If your friend would flunk out of a subject if he didn't do well on it, what would you rather do? Stand by and watch him crumble and lose or just help him a little bit? I don't care if I have to cheat just to prevent one of my friends from not getting into seventh year with the rest of us," Sirius said matter-of-factly.

Lily's face darkened for a moment, and James knew why. What Sirius said would have convinced any other person, but not in Lily's case, because Lily was different. She couldn't feel any empathy towards Sirius. She didn't have friends.

_But she does now, _James reminded himself, staring around at the table. Remus was looking anxious, Peter fearful because he was scared that he was going to be sent to the Headmaster's office _and _flunk his quiz, Sirius' face was a mixture of annoyance and incredulity that Lily was such a goody-two-shoes, and Lily's expression was the same as Sirius', except the reason behind it was probably because she couldn't believe that Sirius could actually cheat in a quiz.

"Look, can we just drop this? Any minute now the professor might come sneaking up on us to check what we're doing. And frankly, it wouldn't be a good idea if she heard that our topic of conversation was cheating with a reason," Remus said, breaking the awkward silence. 

Sirius reluctantly broke his glare off Lily, and Lily in turn sighed and slumped back onto her seat. 

"Are you-are you going to report me?" Peter asked worriedly.

Lily glanced at him and appeared to be doing some sort of consideration. Then she just sighed again and shook her head. "I guess—I guess I would have done the same…if this were six years ago…" There was a distant look on her face, as if she were imagining the days when she was still in a Muggle school and her life was…normal.

Sirius, for a moment, looked guilty that he had argued with her over it when it brought back a lot of memories that were painful to think about. James hadn't told him about the reason why Lily was like that yet, but it was clear that he knew how much Lily was hurting. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just that your way of thinking is different. I respect that," he added hurriedly in case Lily would be even more offended, "but I'm not used to it yet. Usually the four of us could get what the others are thinking because we've been friends for so long, and it's not the same with other people."

Lily simply nodded. There was a sad expression on her face like always but at least the hostility in it was gone. 

In the distance, the bell rang signaling the end of Divination. Professor Trelawney called out an assignment that was barely heard over the stampede of feet rushing to get out of the stuffy room. Lily obviously heard it since she was writing it down on a piece of parchment. 

They headed for the Potions class hurriedly, since going down to the dungeons from a tower that was practically at the opposite side of the castle expended a lot of time…and energy. Then there were their classmates. They had to work with the Slytherins in Potions, since that was the way it had been ever since Hogwarts started a thousand years ago. It wasn't much consolation to trudge from North Tower to a dinky dungeon chamber and have sneering Slytherins at your tail. Whoever made the schedule for the sixth year Gryffindors' classes was obviously very sick and cruel. Probably the Slytherin Head of House. 

It was tiring to race to their classroom even with all the secret passageways they slid through to for a shortcut. Lily's eyes roamed around all the passageways she had never entered before.

"Like it? It gives you less of a hassle if you know every single passageway in Hogwarts," James said, smiling.

"I don't even know half of all the hallways and hidden doors you guys go through. How did you know about all this?" Lily asked.

"Well, it's all in exploring. Sirius here would be bored to death if he sat still for a minute, so we always used to get ourselves lost on a Saturday just to find out all the castle's secrets. It's pointless, though, because Hogwarts is too big and too magical to know everything about it. Everytime we think we've been to every nook and cranny here, we always stumble over a new chamber or another hidden doorway behind a tapestry or something." James knocked on a brick on the wall to their left, and several of the bricks moved to reveal yet another passageway. This time Lily recognized it as the corridor in the dungeons. 

"We got here five minutes earlier than we would have if we didn't use any secret passages," Lily noted, checking her watch. 

"All the times we got trapped in weird rooms and the hours we spent guessing passwords to moving pictures are worth it if you can beat even the caretaker in getting somewhere in the least possible time you can manage," Peter said. He was slightly more cheerful toward Lily now.

"It's pretty useful too when that mad Filch chases after us after a prank," Sirius added, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, he ought to thank me for improving his room, I can't see what he can find to complain about it. It's a change from the dinky interior and horrible chains he displays in it…"

"Sirius turned all the walls in Filch's room pink and purple and transformed all his torture devices into stuffed animals. I think the tiles are patterned hearts," Remus told Lily, smiling in amusement. He opened their classroom door and found it deserted.

"We can teach you everything we know if you want to," Sirius suggested hesitantly. After all, Lily was a prefect. He wasn't sure if she was up to rule-breaking and straying too far from studying. 

"As long as it doesn't interfere with my studies," Lily said.

"Yeah, don't worry about that. We get a lot of extra points in school stuff with all the research we do for our pranks. It's the behavioral assessment and discipline grade that you'd have to worry about," James said. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to," he added when Lily raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. The marauders took their usual stand in their group table. Sirius started talking to Remus and Peter about their prank.

"So, what do you think of them so far?" James asked Lily as he watched his friends.

"I guess they're OK… they aren't as predictable as I thought they were," Lily replied. 

James grinned. "If Sirius heard you say that, he'd have a fit. Was your first impression of him a conventional person?"

"No, in all honesty, I though he was a jock who was shallow as a kiddie pool," Lily said bluntly. 

James didn't know how to answer that one. "Oh. So… is that what you thought of all of us?"

Lily nodded. "Yes, but that was just a first impression. Don't be offended or anything," she said with a smirk.

"Why did you think Sirius was predictable?" James asked quizzically.

"I don't know… like all popular people, I mean. Always seen flirting with girls, having a good relationship with reflective surfaces because he's too concerned with his looks…"

James smiled knowingly. "Sirius _is_ that," he remarked. "But there's more to him than that."

"I know," Lily said quietly. Other students filed into the room. The Slytherins stared at the marauders and Lily a good deal and made sneering comments that they chose to ignore. 

Severus Snape stepped into the room with his gang. Every person in that group flicked their eyes in the marauders' direction and started muttering and snickering to one another. Snape's thin lips curled into a smirk as he walked toward them. 

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the famous Quidditch Ace Potter and his band of laughing dolts," Snape greeted maliciously. Sirius cracked his knuckles and gave Snape a death glare.

"Why Severus, your greetings are getting lamer and lamer everyday. Have you by any chance been diagnosed of retardation lately?" Remus asked mildly. Of all the marauders, he was the one least affected by Snape's loathing of them. At least, he didn't show his hatred as much as the others. 

"And while you were at the hospital, why didn't you visit a plastic surgeon so that you could do something about your enormous nose?" Peter chimed in.

Snape narrowed his eyes at them. "Don't be so cocky. I haven't forgotten the last prank you've played on me. I'll make sure that the consequences you will face are very painful indeed…"

"Ooooh, I'm _so_ scared. Look at me, I'm trembling like a little harmless leaf," Sirius said sardonically. "That was what you said the last time, and the time before that, and the time before the time before the last time—"

"Black, if I haven't been doing anything about your previous pranks, then I assure you that I have the power to pay you back ten times worse," Snape said silkily. 

"Wonderful. We'll be anticipating it," Sirius shot back. "If you don't have any other not-so-threatening threats to scare us with, then I suggest you leave."

Snape ignored him and sneered at James. "So Potter. Run out of whores to date, have you? Are you picking up on an outcast now? As much as I hate you, I do feel a little pity for you if you've stooped so low as to hit on a girl who's practically detached from society completely."

James stared back at him, undaunted. "In any sense, I most certainly do not need your pity, nor ask for it, Snape. And the only way I'll stoop so low is when I lose my dignity by befriending a piece of slime like you and your friends."

"The rumor mill works in strange ways, Potter. In next to no time you will be dragged down from the top of the popularity ladder once news spreads that you hang out with a social reject. And once that happens, I'll be having a good laugh." Snape smirked at him and shook his greasy head.

"Popularity isn't an issue, Snape. If the crowd thinks as shallowly as you do, then it isn't worth holding their admiration and keeping up with what they want just to stay famous," James countered. Snape just sneered and walked back to his friends. 

Sirius stared after their arch nemesis in disgusted anger. "At least you got the last word, Prongs. That sneaking filth deserves something worse than a prank. I'll be planning on it."

James sighed. "Don't bother. Snape isn't dumb, you know. He may be a smug git, but he's pretty smart and that makes him worse. Just ignore him and don't be affected by his threats." He turned toward Lily. "Are you OK?"

Lily looked at him blankly and nodded, but there was something different in her face after the marauders' little chat with Snape. "The rumor mill…and I thought I'm permanently removed from anything concerning gossip already," she muttered.

Remus smiled apologetically. "We're really sorry for dragging you into this, Lily. I wish people weren't as nosy as they are either, but we can't do anything about the power of word of mouth."

"Students are so gossip-hungry, it's disgusting," James commented. 

Lily looked surprised. "You mean you guys don't like gossip?" 

Sirius started. "I do! Did you hear that—"

"Sirius," James and Remus said in unison, rolling their eyes.

"We'll deal with Snape. Don't worry about it, Lily," Remus assured.

"Not being an outcast brings me a lot more problems than before," Lily said with a sigh.

"Yeah, but that's what makes life interesting. I'd rather have a bunch of problems with friends to confide in than keeping to myself and not having anybody to talk to when something's bothering me," James pointed out.

"True," Lily said with a small smile. Smiling seemed to take an effort for her. He wondered what it was like not to smile for such a long time. 

_She'll learn to let loose soon enough. I'll do whatever it takes to make her smile for real, _James promised himself. He still couldn't recognize the emotion that drove him so much to help Lily from being an outcast. It wasn't pity, because pity was something he disagreed with. Pity just put the person you pity on down because you would make him or her feel worse, as if you were capable of pitying them because you were above them. It wasn't respect either. So what was it?

*****  

**AN – **Nothing much happened, right? Sorry if it wasn't satisfying enough (at least it wasn't for me) but I feel like I haven't updated in so long. School will tire your brain cells out to no end. Did you know that I had Saturday classes yesterday? (January 11) And I lost my frigging wallet in school! * grumble grumble curse curse * So I'll say it loud and proud: SCHOOL SUCKS SCHOOL SUCKS SCHOOL SUCKS SCHOOL SUCKS SCHOOL SUCKS!!! School sucks like the EleRat, who, in fact, is another factor that makes school suck so much because he's I see him every weekday and _that _ruins my day… School sucks like my older brother David, who thankfully is currently traveling to the province with dad and sis, which explains the reason why I could finish this chapter finally. School sucks like asthma, which David has now * laughs evilly * but unfortunately I caught his cough and everytime I have coughs it evolves into asthma… ARGH! Well, no use complaining to you about my boring life. Oh yes, and school sucks like not getting any feedback, so review, OK? I'll be needing it once my asthma gets worse and I'll be free from school for a couple of days… 

~Dimantrien (sorry for the long A/N, can't help whining ya know? ;P Pathetic me, I know.)


	8. Evasion

# Out of Her Shell

**By Dimantrien**

**Chapter 8: Evasion**

** **

The next few days that passed were more than a handful for Lily. Everywhere she went people whispered and stared, probably theorizing on how she wormed her way into four popular people's lives. Her reflex action to any harsh side comments was her usual eye roll and withering glare, but somehow she felt that she was losing her touch in the callousness department. Ever since James asked her permission to be her friend… 

It wasn't that she was coldhearted by nature. She had once been a stereotypical person herself…directly under the sweet, innocent, nicey-nice girl category. She scoffed at the mental image of herself when she was nine or ten. Times sure have changed drastically. Or maybe they haven't much. The truth was, she was probably the same person inside. She hated clichés but she knew she was just putting up a mask. To avoid more drama, to prevent herself from getting hurt again… these were her thoughts when she sunk deep into comforting isolation. At least, seclusion was comfortable during the time when her parents died. 

But it wasn't now.

Somewhere along the line of six years of social rejection—by choice, not by force—some parts of her old personality had changed. She wasn't as gullible and saccharine as she had been as a child, and the lack of her family made her develop an unsympathetic character. She didn't have anyone to feel sympathy for, and neither would anyone offer any for her, so what reason should keep her caring for others who didn't give a damn for her either? And her emerald green eyes lost the twinkling spark they always had when she was younger—the free-spirited innocence of a kid—and was replaced by darker jade that always made you think of dark and deep pits that you wouldn't like to jump into. But other than that…

Other than that, nothing had changed much. Even if she was mostly rude towards others, there was always a part of her who wanted to hold back, like it was telling her that she was wrong. That she was just going with her instincts because she didn't want to go through an experience similar to the one that had changed her life completely. 

She had never thought of moving on. Lily was sick of those words ever since her parents' death and the day that her sister turned from her. "Don't worry about it, these things will pass sooner than you think." "You have to learn to move on, or you won't get anywhere, remember that." "If you don't leave things in the past, then you'd just suffer a lot longer." "These wounds take time to heal, Lily, but you'll come through. It seems hard at first, but before you can blink you'll be your normal self again." 

Yeah, right. Lily knew that even if she "moved on," the memory of the way her family was taken away from her would be permanently etched in her brain. Unless there was yet to be a Memory Charm so powerful that it would erase even that, she wasn't going to be moving on anytime soon. 

Lily sighed and rolled over in her bed. Most of her free time was spent thinking gloomy thoughts, and this time was no different from the others. At least it was a Saturday. The only problem was, she was so studious that she had finished every single assignment yesterday and she had nothing to do at all. And having nothing to do forced her to think about things she didn't want to think about. Sometimes she hated having such a twisted mind.

After a while of lying around, she decided to head to the library. Maybe she could drown herself in some book that wouldn't make her feel so depressed. She walked across the room and was just reaching for the doorknob when it swung open suddenly, causing her to jump back and trip on a shoe that was conveniently placed in the middle of the clean floor. 

Sirius Black stood in the open doorway. "Oops. Were you that excited to see me, or was my grand entrance too stunning for you to marvel at in an upright position?" he joked arrogantly, blowing at his knuckles in a mock suave manner. 

Lily rolled her eyes. "You wish," she muttered, taking the hand that he thrust at her to help her up. "Are you aware that you're not supposed to be in here?" 

"I am aware, but a marauder does not need to heed such petty restrictions," Sirius answered lightly, leaning on the doorway. Lily just shook her head."Fine, I'll get to the point. His Royal Pain in the Whatchamacallit James Potter wants you to haul your lazy butt down to the common room ASAP, as he so kindly requested to me in an authoritative tone."

"Is he _that _desperate to see me?" Lily remarked sarcastically. 

"Prongs isn't a desperate man," Sirius replied with a shrug. Then he grinned. "But then again, maybe there's something _behind _it…"

Lily rolled her eyes again and followed Sirius out the door. She didn't bother deciphering what Sirius was implying, since he was obviously just playing around as usual. His crazed mentality was pretending to pair up people who were considered single or at least teasing certain victims of being a couple. It drove everybody mad. 

The other three marauders were sitting on armchairs in the common room. It was rather unusual to see them staying inside during a sunny afternoon since they were often seen sneaking around the school or disturbing the activities in the Forbidden Forest when it was still daylight.

"There you are, Lily! We've been looking for you everywhere," James exclaimed, waving her over.

"Correction: _I've _been looking for her everywhere," Sirius interjected, plopping onto his seat, with Lily sitting on an armchair next to him. "And of all places, you didn't think of looking for her in her own dormitory. Why is it that I'm the one who had to run through the whole school while you guys just sit here all comfy and relaxed?"

"Because you said that you needed to go to the kitchens to grab a bite," Remus reminded.

"Because you volunteered to pass by the Slytherin quarters and put the potion we made into Snape's shampoo," Peter chimed in.

"Because you're trying to find a new girl to hook up with since Tamara Laughlan from Ravenclaw dumped y—"

James uttered this last statement, and Sirius hastily interrupted with a scowl. "Right, so you've proven it enough already. What's the purpose of this little gathering, anyway?" 

It was Remus' turn to grimace. "Rumor mill control. It's been going haywire ever since…" he trailed off, glancing hesitantly at Lily.

"Ever since I started to hang out with you guys, right?" Lily supplied, frowning slightly. 

"That's OK, Lily, everybody's like that anyway," James jumped in. "We can't avoid people talking about it since you haven't hung out with anybody in so long. We're just here to talk about how we're going to stop them from thinking up crazy ideas and adding fictional endings to their theories to make their gossip more interesting."

Lily's frown deepened. "Why do people do that?" After all these years, she couldn't understand why people thrived so much for gossip, the little pieces of reports about other people that were never confirmed to be true in any way. If it was universally known that gossip was inaccurate, then why were people so eager to hear it day after day?

Remus laughed mirthlessly. "Why do they do it? It's because they enjoy talking about others behind their backs. They like getting hold of a piece of news that is worthy of an interesting conversation that would circulate through the school faster than wildfire. They like making or breaking people's reputations, until such a time comes that they themselves experience being the person gossiped about and hear untrue things being told about them. Or at least truths that would be horrible, not to mention dangerous, to spread around and say carelessly to others." 

There was a moment of silence at this, where only Lily had no clue as to why he answered that way. Two months back, Severus Snape had threatened Remus of telling the whole school that Remus was a werewolf, ever since the prank that Sirius had played on him. It was the perfect revenge, and he managed to spill the beans to his two closest friends Avery and Nott before Dumbledore talked to him and told him not to tell another soul of Remus' identity. Remus spent three agonizing months being hissed at by Avery and Nott, who found amusement in insulting him, knowing that they had the upper hand because blackmail was on their side. The marauders spent those three months looking up a Memory Charm that would make Avery and Nott forget, but they never got around to doing it since they themselves had been called to Dumbledore with the three Slytherins. Blabbing to another person, even a friend, meant facing expulsion.

And so their blackmail option was foiled, but the fact that their worst enemies nearly blabbed his deepest secret to the whole school was enough to make the marauders edgy. And it wasn't much help to see the smug look on Snape's face everytime he passed them in the corridors. Like he was superior to them because the fate of their friend's reputation was in his hands or something. Miserable bastard.

"Uh…that's right. So, we're all against gossip, Lily, not just you. Another presupposition of yours broken, isn't it?" James spoke up, looking directly at Lily with a just-say-something-that'll-change-the-topic expression. 

"I guess so," Lily said indifferently. "I didn't really mind gossip ever since I just faded into the background because I was assured of never being included in the rumors at all. I couldn't say the same now, though," she said, her expression shifting to one of mild annoyance. 

Peter cleared his throat. "Um…not meaning to interrupt but… so far, I've heard some rumors that don't even come close to the real reason why we're friends with Lily… and…they…er…" He gulped, avoiding the eyes of his friends.

"What? What have you heard so far, Wormtail?" Remus asked sharply. The others were staring intently at him.

"Uh…they seem to be under the impression that one of us is—is…has a _thing_ for Lily, or something," Peter confessed. 

Sirius looked like he didn't mind this at all. "Oh, that's OK. Everybody typically thinks that. S'long as it's James they think likes Lil—"

"Er, Sirius… I meant that different people assume either of us four, so that means that some people think it's Remus, or James, or you—"

"WHAT!"

"Calm down Sirius, it's just a dumb rumor," James snapped. Lily abruptly stood up and dashed to the portrait hole. 

James, surprised, followed her, but Lily was faster than she looked. She was nowhere in the long corridor, and James, who left the marauder's map upstairs, knew that he should just leave her be and wait for her to come back later. Something must have bothered her again.

When he went back to his friends, Sirius was in hysterics.

"But—but they're going too far! Do _I_ look like _I_ want to hit on Lily?!" Sirius demanded them, pointing furiously at himself.

"Nah, you look like you only date girls who wear 36C and above," Remus responded with an amused smirk. Sirius scowled. 

"How are we going to stop the rumors? It's not like we can hypnotize the whole school into thinking straight and invent a spell that would subdue their overactive imaginations," Sirius argued.

"It's not like we can fix the rumor by sitting here, complaining and whining," James said, his mind still on pondering why Lily left.

"Who started the rumor anyway, Peter?" Remus asked.

Peter's watery eyes hardened. "From all the people I've heard from, only one person started it."

"Who?" Sirius said impatiently. 

"Severus Snape."

*****

For the following days, Sirius had this constant look on his face that implied that he wanted to rip Snape's eyes out, or strangle the grease head until his head would come off, or hex him so that skunks sprouted from his head and stayed there…or…or do something else that would suggest lethal murder. Sirius _was _still one of the most popular guys in Hogwarts, and though pranks and his friends were his first priority, his reputation was still important to him. There was nothing wrong with wrongly being paired with the school outcast, or used-to-be-outcast, as Remus had said, but Sirius knew how the rumors worked, and what they'd be thinking of what he was supposedly doing with Lily…and he was sure as hell that it involved a lot more than spewing corny lovesick lines and offering of flowers and chocolates. 

"For the last time, Sirius, _ignore the stupid idiots,_" James said with annoyance, as his friend turned to hex yet another guy who was snickering about seeing him in bed with "the outcast." 

"I would, but I can't just walk out without revenge, Prongs. You'd look like a brainless, helpless wimp if you do," Sirius returned with his teeth clenched. "Dumbass morons. How dare they mock _moi_, the ultimate prank puller, the most good-looking, drool worthy male in this school, the wittiest, smartest, most cunning—"

"Have you buttered yourself up enough?" Peter asked in a bored voice. At the moment they were looking for Lily. She had outdone herself in the last few days by being The Most Evasive Person in Hogwarts. Somehow she could do a spell on herself that wiped her name off the Marauder's Map. James was starting to regret showing her the map in the first place.

"Maybe she _isn't _in Hogwarts during her free time and that's why we can't find her," Peter had suggested, clueless as always. 

Sirius had shaken his head at this. "No, Lily's too serious about rules to go anywhere she shouldn't be. Besides, she's an ace in Charms. She probably knew how to make her name disappear from the map ages ago. It's not like she had anything better to do during those times she spent locking herself up in the dormitory all day than poring through thick library books."

Remus also pointed out Lily's apparently extraordinary speed, which Sirius brushed off as another charm she must have used to make her avoid them more easily. During classes, Lily sat up front, something she never did, and she got there just before the late bell, so there was no way they could talk to her. When they passed her notes, she ignored the pieces of parchment. When the bell rang for the end of the class, she would have already had all her things packed up and would sprint out the door before anybody else and disappear into the throng of students in the hallways.

But why was she avoiding them?

James asked this thought out loud to the marauders. In the previous days that they had spent yet again looking for Lily, none of them really bothered to know why exactly she was evading them. Until now.

"I dunno," Peter answered with a shrug. "Maybe she decided that being a person out in the open isn't such a good idea after all."

"Or she might have unfortunately encountered the snob squad elitists and is still recovering from the wounds their tongue-lashing inflicted," Sirius guessed with a shudder, remembering how said elitists had turned on him ever since he started to hang out with Lily. The snob squad was the group of the prettiest, most popular (not to mention richest) girls in Hogwarts, kind of like the counterpart of the marauders in terms of popularity. Sirius was usually seen with them when he wasn't with his friends.

Ever since they gave him the cold shoulder, he gave them the alias of "snob squad." And it was about time that he realized that they were just that, too.

"Sirius, don't think like that. Though I'm not entirely sure if you're wrong, since there is still a possibility," Remus said. "The most rational thing I can come up with is that she's majorly upset with the rumors and she's trying to fix it by not hanging out with us, which means that the crowd will settle down and stop formulating new theories. They wouldn't be able to since Lily isn't with us anymore."

James thought that Remus' guess hit the closest to home. In the few weeks he had really known Lily, he could read her expressions and her way of thinking a little bit better. And he knew that this was how Lily was going to try to resolve the problem. By avoiding the problem as much as possible. 

And the problem, he knew, was her hanging out with them. 

There was a weird part of him that was apparently very, very disappointed at this conclusion. A part that was telling him that he missed Lily already. 

"What do you think, Prongs?" Sirius said, looking at him.

James took a deep breath. "I think we should find Lily. And tell her that no matter what the rumors say, we'll always be here to be her friends."

*****

That night, Remus, being the most rational one as usual, told James that his only chance of catching Lily was when she was in her dormitory. There wouldn't be any escape there. And since Lily probably figured that staying in her dorm all day would just make the marauders easier to find her, his only chance of seeing her there would be night time, when she was asleep. 

Sirius took a little side trip that same night, saying that he was going to put their put-a-charm-on-Snape's-shampoo-and-get-really-embarrassing-side-effects prank (mentioned in chappie 1) into action. They needed the potion too so that those _particular _thoughts would pop up above Snape's head. 

Peter would be coming with Sirius, and Remus had to stay in the dormitory to cover for the absence of his three friends. He was also left with the burden of doing all the homework that they would copy later on because they had no time to do it. It was a good thing that Remus was such a nice, tolerant guy. ^__^

James took out his invisibility cloak and set off for the girls' dormitory. He had to be careful; being a prefect who broke the rules earned more burdensome punishments if he was caught. Another curse to prefectdom. The worst part was that he didn't even ask for it. 

The atmosphere in the Gryffindor Tower was as silent as the grave as James tiptoed his way up the girls' staircase. Every step he made, no matter how cautious, echoed off the walls and emitted a loud sound that normally would just be a soft tap when mixed into the normal buzz of student voices in the common room. 

He reached the door where the sixth-year Gryffindor girls stayed and pressed his ear against it to find out if anybody was still up. He didn't fancy barging into the room and finding a girl changing into her pajamas or something. 

Silence. The coast was clear.

He opened the door carefully, blessing the house elves for keeping the hinges well-oiled so they didn't creak. Five beds had their hangings shut, and there wasn't a flash of movement in any of them. He went toward the bed that was closest to the bathroom, feeling the familiar sense of déjà vu. He had been here before after all. 

As quietly as he could, he crept to Lily's bed and opened the hangings. The bed was empty.

Where in the world would Lily Evans go off to at eleven o'clock in the evening?

*****

The wind on a winter evening wasn't as harsh as usual, Lily noted. It felt gentler, more comforting, and it felt like…

It felt like 'her' wind. It was rather a childlike thought, really. When she was small, she always thought that the forces of nature were either her friends or her enemies…

Like the storms and blizzards, which kept her feeling insanely cold. They were hateful and she despised them. She never really liked rain and snow much.

A light breeze or the soft pattering of a slight drizzle, on the other hand, were tame enough for her preferences. The wind was like her friend ever since she was a kid. It always knew when she wanted to go and play outside, it drove the dark, gloomy rain clouds away… and when she was tired of playing in the garden of her home and went back in, it didn't hold back the rain that came in torrents. 

The wind was her friend. The only one, in fact, when she became an outcast. It kept her in control of her emotions, and the faint whistling of it was like a soft voice telling her that everything would be all right. When she was angry or stressed, 'her' wind soothed her. Yet it wasn't always present when she wanted it to be…

But it was here now, and that was all that mattered.

She was in a tower. One of the lesser towers of Hogwarts, perhaps, because from the open window at the top of it, she could see clearly the four main towers higher above it. It had the outer structure of the Owlery and the Astronomy Tower, with almost the whole of the wall at the very top story open. It was on a window on this tower that she was sitting, looking at the scenery of the Forbidden Forest underneath a star-filled, moonless night. The absence of the luminous moon cast an eerie look on the Forest, making it appear more menacing than usual. 

For as long as she could remember, she went to that tower. It was her own private place. Nobody ever came up that tower, and ever since that thought registered in her mind she'd been coming there often. Especially during times when she felt particularly sad or depressed. Like now.

A wave of tears assaulted her eyes as the cool wind whipped her red hair to her cheeks. They spilled, glistening, down her cheeks, as she thought of the recent events that occurred. James Potter extending his and for friendship. Her, ignorantly and gullibly accepting it. The result of said friendship, problems affecting his whole gang as well as herself. No matter what she did, no matter how much she avoided problems, the pestering of Gloom chased after her. 

No matter what she did, she was stuck with her fate. She wouldn't have any friends. She _couldn't _have any friends. She only ended up burdening them with her stupid problems. 

Or rather, the problems that followed her own damned existence even as she tried desperately to ward them off. 

Sighing softly, she wiped the tears off with the back of her hand and went toward the door leading downstairs. The charm she used to erase her name from the Marauder's Map was extremely effective.

She had to avoid them. It was for their own good. And hers, for that matter.

Her footsteps echoed emptily on the stone floor. Why were they still persistent? Why were they making so much of an effort to be her friend?

Why?

_Simple. Because they _really _want to be your friend, _a nagging voice told her. 

What would they want from an outcast like me? The only thing I bring them is problems, and that isn't even something good. So why do they still look for me and chase after me? Why won't they leave me alone? Her outcast thoughts started kicking in. 

Friendship works in mysterious ways. Who knows why? There doesn't have to be a logical reason. It only means that they have a bond with you now… a bond that means they want to be your friend no matter what. Why can't you just accept it? What are you so afraid of?

Shut up, wiseass, the outcast part snapped. Great. She was arguing with herself. Had she really gone out of her mind?

She reached the last step down the tower and paused in the middle of the empty corridor.

Don't listen to anybody else. They truly want to be your friend. That's something you should be grateful for.

Yeah, right. And I'm betting it comes with a truckload of pains and headaches, to boot.

So pessimistic.

There is always a catch in everything. 

Lily rolled her eyes to herself and took a step forward. And heard a gasp to her right.

She whirled to her right, her face paling. With all the stupid thoughts in her head, she had forgotten to perform an Invisibility charm on herself. She saw the caretaker, Apollyon Pringle, his face equally pale.

"M-m-miss Evans…you are, you are a prefect! How could you break…break the rules?" Pringle was apparently flabbergasted at her irrational behavior. Just great.

Lily didn't say anything and just stood there, waiting for him to say something. 

"You do realize that…there are serious consequences…" Pringle started up again quietly.

Lily's face, if possible, paled the more. Uh-oh…

*****

**AN – **Argh…nothing happened again… I just can't think of how to advance the plot. I hate my laziness… * stares daggers at her laziness and whacks it with a Beater's club * Take that! Shoo! Scram! Vamoose! I still have a ton of schoolwork to do, and I won't be able to accomplish it with you hanging around! * looks back at the readers * Thanks for your comments! You have made Dimantrien extremely happy. If only Dimantrien could stop lazing around and get serious, she could actually produce a couple of good chapters to return your kindness… * glares at her laziness again and this time brandishes a wand out of nowhere and chases after it, yelling hexes * As I said earlier, I have a ton of schoolwork including directing a school play, researching for an innovative experiment, making a documentary project about the 4th World Meeting of Families, bullying my stupid mind on how to do basic computer programming right, and * gasp * dreading the distribution of report cards on Jan. 20… Wish me luck! L8er! 

_ _

_ _


	9. Breaking Off

Out of Her Shell 

**By Dimantrien**

**Chapter 9: Breaking Off **

"Detention!"

Peter trembled. Remus sighed. James flinched. And Sirius grinned like a maniac.

Professor McGonagall was furious. "I _specifically _told you to round up all the bullfrogs and put them back into their cage! _Not _cast an Engorgement Charm on them and…and…"  

Sirius supplied the rest. "…perform a spell that would make them breathe an overwhelmingly nasty stench that, in coming contact with human flesh, would stir up a reactant in the follicles of hair and cause them to grow thick and long in a matter of seconds. Oh, and don't forget that their potent exhalation also has an effect on non-skin-covered objects, which will result to—"

"All the walls, floors, and doors covered in gigantic, disgusting, hairy warts!" McGonagall interjected angrily. 

Sirius' head bobbed up and down in agreement. "Of course. Actually it wasn't specified in the hex book what exactly would cover an inanimate object if the curse touched it, so we were also curious about the aftereffect…"

"AND YOU THOUGHT THAT TESTING THE CURSE ON DOZENS OF INNOCENT STUDENTS WOULD BE AN APPROPRIATE WAY OF SATISFYING YOUR CURIOSITY?!" 

"Innocent professors, too," Remus muttered, eyeing McGonagall, who was barely recognizable since she was completely covered in thick, long (as in three-feet tufts of) brown hair. She looked like a Cousin It who had just gone to a hair salon to get a new hair color…

The mound of hair that was McGonagall turned to look at Remus, or at least James thought it was looking at Remus, since he didn't really know where its face was under all the hair. "I would like to remind you, Lupin, that this is the sixty-third detention you have received in this school year _alone._"

Remus cringed. Even though he couldn't see her face through the thick locks, he could feel her icy glare trained on him. 

"Ooh, ooh! I still hold the record! This is my _eighty-seventh_ detention this year! You'll never beat me, Moony!" Sirius exclaimed happily.

"Silence, Black! I am disgusted with your behavior! How could you take pride in pulling practical jokes on people who haven't done anything wrong?! I cannot believe how a Gryffindor could act so atrociously!!!" The mound of hair shook with unspeakable shock and rage.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we go to the Headmaster's office now? That's what you always tell us to do, anyway…" Sirius tapped his foot impatiently, obviously not taking in a word of McGonagall's tirade, as he had already heard it countless times before.

"It is infinitely less than you deserve! Lord knows why Albus is so laid back when it comes to your disciplinary issues! I will have to talk some sense into him!"

"We'll pass it along to Professor Dumbledore. See you later, Professor," James said quickly. 

"Yeah! Ciao, Professor M! We'll make sure to put in a good word for you so that he'd appoint you Deputy Headmistress, or whatever your aspirations are," Sirius piped up. 

"Cease your nonsense, Black, and just go to the Headmaster immediately," McGonagall said curtly.

Sirius shrugged and started to walk toward the door.

"But first tell me the countercurse to get all this damned hair off me."

*****  

The student messenger stood in the open doorway of the Advanced Arithmancy classroom. All the sixth years looked up at the interruption, some annoyed, some curious. The messenger, being two years younger than them, cleared his throat nervously before reading the little piece of parchment in his hands.

"Excuse me, Professor, but it says here that the Headmaster calls Lily Evans for an appointment in his office immediately," the messenger said. As soon as he said those words, the other students immediately shrugged and stuck their noses back into their workbooks, with the typical Oh-it's-just-about-the-outcast looks on their disinterested faces. 

"Well then, out you go, Miss Evans," the professor told her, an inquisitive expression on her face. She must be wondering why a prefect like Lily would be called to the Headmaster's office.

Lily stood and went out the door, instantly irritated by the overly interested gaze on the fourth-year messenger's face. "What the hell are you gaping at? Go back to wherever you were before you were sent to give me the message!" she snapped at him. The boy jumped back, freezing in fright for a couple of seconds before scurrying as far away from Lily as possible. Lily sighed and made her way to the Headmaster's office, thinking about how this day sucked. More than a couple of nosy gossipers whispered as she passed in the hallways, about a dozen students snickered at her when they saw her, and the snob squad had openly mocked her to her face before Arithmancy…with an overly interested audience in tow. The only highlight of her otherwise crappier-than-hell day was when said snob squad was standing outside the Transfiguration classroom and a bunch of giant mutated toad things appeared, breathed on them and turned them into living mounds of hair. She ran off before the curse could hit her too, grateful to whoever caused the diversion so that she could escape. 

Still, things were not looking up. She had never been called to see Dumbledore, unless it concerned prefect matters. Why were the fates against her all of a sudden? What horrible thing did she actually do to deserve all this?

Oh yeah. Hanging out with the four most popular guys in the school. The price of friendship. Maybe she really was better off not having any friends at all…

But she knew that she'd feel horrible if she did. When the marauders befriended her, she felt like a huge load was taken off her shoulders, as if all the pain she was feeling melted away when they did something goofy and made her laugh. It was the first time in years that she had felt that way towards other people, and she didn't want to lose it. 

She reached the gargoyle statue in the wall and said the password ("Fizzing Whizbee"), stepping onto the moving staircase that led up to the Headmaster's office. The door was slightly open and she could hear voices inside. She knocked (though she didn't know why she bothered since the door was ajar anyway) and the voices stopped. 

"Ah, that must be Miss Evans. Do come in," Dumbledore's voice called from inside. Lily pushed the door open and went in. 

"Yo Lils! Did you get into trouble and mutate already disgusting animals to look and be more disgusting too?" Sirius piped up, startling Lily. 

Lily looked up and saw her four friends, three of which mirrored the expression of surprise on her face, and one who didn't look too serious about why they were in the Headmaster's office in the first place. She should have known. Nobody else in Hogwarts other than them would dare to pull a prank like that… She started to grin at Sirius but stopped when she remembered where they were.

She was reminded of her thoughts previously, of how easily they could make her forget her worries. Just one crack from Sirius actually made her smile even though she knew she was going to be punished for a major offense. 

"Have a seat, Lily. I hope you don't mind the company? It was an impromptu appointment, really, when Misters Lupin, Black, Potter and Pettigrew suddenly burst into my office without notice a couple of minutes ago." Dumbledore's eyes, as they always did, twinkled as he spoke.

"I don't mind at all, Headmaster," Lily answered politely. What she did mind was the fact that they would stick around to hear about the rule she broke last night. 

Sirius seemed to realize that she wasn't here for prefect duties. "So, didja do something Lils? Why else would you be here?" he asked, amusing himself by snatching one of the silver winding instruments on Dumbledore's desk and making it go magically haywire.

Lily rolled her eyes at him in an attempt to keep herself from smiling. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?"

"Yeah. I'm the only one who's allowed to call her by that name," James jumped in with a grin. 

Lily pretended to scowl at him. "I don't remember ever giving you permission to do so, James." She couldn't help it. She started to smile too.

"Really? Then what would you prefer? Lillian? Lilac? Flower Power?" James suggested.

"Try none of the above," Lily shot back. Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"I would hate to interrupt, but we really are getting farther away from the subject at hand." He shuffled some parchment that was on the top of his desk. Five student-record compilations, four of them filled to overflowing with parchment, were stacked on top of one another on the left side of the table. He took the one at the very top, which was the bulkiest, and flipped it open. The first piece of parchment, which must be the cover page, read "Sirius Black" in bold script. 

Dumbledore flipped it to the last page, which already had a list of recent-played pranks on it and the corresponding punishment. "Well, Sirius, I'd say you've outdone yourself. This is the three-hundred and sixty-ninth time you will be given a detention, or group of detentions, as I will discuss with your Head of House later on."

"Really?" Sirius said, his eyes glittering. "How many does James have so far?" he inquired.

The Headmaster looked at the next compilation, which was more or less of the same thickness as Sirius' and ran his long finger over the list on the last page. "Three hundred and sixty-three," he replied.

Sirius jumped up from his seat and smirked at James. "Ha! In your face!"

"Sirius, I never had a conversation with you concerning a contest for the most detentions accumulated since first year," James pointed out calmly.

"You didn't? Damn," Sirius sighed, plopping back into his armchair. "Oh well. There're always Rem and Pete."

Dumbledore cleared his throat again. "It is obvious that you are in no condition to sit in your chair and listen to the discussion of your detention, so I permit the four of you to leave and I shall just inform you through your Head of House concerning your punishment." 

"But Dumble—I mean, Headmaster, we want to know why Lily's in trouble too," Sirius whined, earning himself a serious death glare from the redhead. 

Dumbledore's smile remained the same, but his eyes had a glimmer of finality. "That is a matter between Miss Evans and me. You are excused." 

Lily sighed in relief, looking at Dumbledore gratefully before watching the marauders leave. Sirius was grumbling and slowing down his pace, in hopes of hearing about how Lily was called to the office. Dumbledore didn't give an inch, though, and waited until the door was firmly shut.

"So, Lily," Dumbledore started, smiling at her warmly. He made it seem as though he was beginning a friendly conversation, not sounding like he was about to punish her for breaking a rule—a rule she, of all people, wasn't expected to break. 

_Why does he always smile like that? _she wondered. She couldn't imagine smiling for no reason, not after all these years of rarely smiling at all. 

Dumbledore continued. "We are here to discuss—" He stood up abruptly, surprising Lily. She stared as he walked around his desk and past her, toward the door. What was he doing?

"Um, Professor…" she said nervously, wondering why he would suddenly decide to go out when he just asked _her_ to come to his office to talk to him.

"A moment, if you please, Lily…" Dumbledore said calmly, twisting the doorknob and opening the door. Four people who were leaning against it fell forward, landing as a pile on the carpeted floor. 

"OW! Geroff me, Wormtail!" 

" * groan * Moony, you stepped on my stomach…"

"Sorry, Prongs… Padfoot pushed me."

Lily tried to contain her laughter as she watched the four struggling to untangle themselves from each other. Dumbledore was smiling amusedly. 

"I'm deeply sorry for this, boys, but I must insist that you leave. Your next class is Potions, I believe?"  The marauders nodded gloomily. 

"Yeah, that's why we're trying to stick around as long as pos—," Sirius mumbled, but James elbowed him in the ribs and he cut off his statement, wincing.

"Then it's best that you be off. Professor Witzgromeneirre is in a rather bad mood today…" Dumbledore nodded at them, and they started to trudge back out. 

"Way worse than usual, that crabby git?" Sirius griped under his breath.

"It is rude to talk of your educators that way, Sirius," Dumbledore said sternly.

"Sorry, Professor D," Sirius answered automatically. It never ceased any of them that nothing, not even a teeny side comment, could slip past the eccentric Headmaster. He closed the door behind them, and this time Dumbledore performed an Acoustic Charm on the door so even if they were attempting at eavesdropping again, they wouldn't be able to hear anything.

"How strange their monikers are…" Dumbledore murmured as he went back to his usual spot behind his desk. Lily looked at him apprehensively again, her clammy hands clasped together on her lap. She'd never broken a school rule. Ever.

"Do not be so anxious, Lily, punishments are not as tortuous as you think," the aging wizard reassured her. Somehow she didn't feel any better when he said that.

"I'm…I'm really very sorry, Headmaster, and I'm willing to comply to the consequences that would be suitable to compensate for the rule that I have broken." She winced, noting the formality in her voice. It made her sound like she was reading from a cue card or something. 

"Very well. The offense written in this report is loitering around the castle past curfew. I'm quite certain that there haven't been any prefect patrols assigned last night, as there are no uprising problems. The equivalent consequence regarding this report, for a prefect, is a week's detention to be discussed by the Heads of Houses. Points will be deducted from your House, of course, but the amount of it will also be conferred by the Heads, and they shall compose a letter informing your guardian regarding this incident. Your privileges of being a prefect will be suspended until the time that you have finished the required number of detentions to be served, including deducting points from other students and using the rooms that only prefects can enter. That is all."

_That's _all_? _Lily's mind scoffed. _Yeah, you got something to complain about? You got yourself into this, now you've got to pay for crossing the line, _her conscience retorted. "I understand, Professor," she answered politely, trying to stop her hands from shaking.

"I'm glad that you are taking this well, Lily. Make no mistake, a similar incident like this that would follow in the future will have graver consequences, and your behavior shall be monitored for the next few days. I do hope you will not consider sneaking out again." 

Lily nodded and tucked a nonexistent strand of hair behind her ear like she always did when she was tense. What else was she supposed to say? 

"For now, you must surrender your prefect badge, have all passwords to the different prefect bathrooms and conference rooms removed from your memory with a simple Memory Charm, and write a letter of apology that is directed to the school stating the rule you have broken and how you are to repent for it. You must submit the letter of apology no later than this coming weekend." Dumbledore looked her over, as if making sure she was processing his words and understanding them clearly. 

Lily nodded again, unpinning her silver badge and putting it on top of the desk. It would feel weird and upsetting not to wear it… But what about that Memory Charm?

She didn't have to worry about that longer, since Dumbledore stood up with his wand in his hand, murmuring a few words under his breath and pointing the wand at her. That was all she remembered before all thoughts were chased out of her head, as if something were erasing them…and she felt her eyes getting heavier and sleep threatening to overcome her. Then everything went black.

*****  

"Why was Lily called to go to Dumbledore's office? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Wh—" 

"Sirius, in the name of Merlin, _shut up,_" James groaned, feeling his patience slowly slipping away with every 'Why?' his best friend uttered. 

"All I'm asking for is an answer, Mister Touchy-and-Grouchy." Sirius leaned over his bed, rummaging for the Marauder's Map that he recalled stuffing under it when the seventh year prefect had decided to pay James a visit. 

"Well, Mister Touchy-and-Grouchy apparently doesn't have it, so you might as well give up," Remus called from his own four-poster, not looking up from the book he was supposedly reading. Sirius could tell that he wasn't reading it at all; he was listening in to their conversation.

"Doesn't have what?" Sirius asked confusedly, still feeling around for the map. Damnit, he should remind himself to clean the area under his bed sometime, or at least learn a neat Sorter Spell that would put his things back where they belonged in no time. 

"The answer, you dolt," James replied, rolling his eyes. "Why don't you clear out with the Marauder's Map and hunt her down yourself if you're so desperate to find out?" 

"I would, but the damned-by-all-the-gods map is missing," Sirius said peevishly, extracting a few crumpled parchment quizzes from the endless black hole that was the bottom of his bed but no map. 

James shook his head and grabbed his wand from his bedside table. _"Accio map!" _he announced, and the map whizzed out from under Sirius' bed and into James' waiting arms. 

Sirius smacked his hand to his forehead. "Oh, why didn't I think of that!" he exclaimed.

"Because stupidly asking stupid questions to stupid people will make you even stupider," Remus snickered.

"Hey, I resent that," James protested, scowling at Remus. Remus just smiled back innocently. 

"I second the motion," Sirius added. He swiped the map from James and made a run for the door.

"He must be _really _desperate," Remus commented.

James just sighed. "I second the motion."

*****  

Lily walked down the familiar corridors of the east wing. At first, she found herself heading in the direction of 'her' tower, but as soon as she realized it, she turned and walked back to the opposite direction. She didn't need anything that reminded her why her day had sucked so much.

She turned at another intersection and found herself in a totally different hall. It was in times like this that she wished she had a map like the one James and his friends made, so that she would never get lost. Or at least cut across five corridors through a concealed passage to save herself the trouble of memorizing turns and walking thrice the distance to wherever she was going. 

She walked down the wide hallway, now sure that she had never been here before. 

_Maybe I should just go back to how I was before, _she thought as she strolled on. There were no cross sections to this hall. _It was lonelier, but at least I didn't have to have the hassle of always watching my back and hear people saying untrue things about me. _There were no worries back then. No worries, if you excluded all the nights she woke up after a nightmare about how her parents died and cried for hours after with no friend's shoulder to cry on. 

Right. No worries… 

If she gave up friendship, she could just shut herself in all over again. After all, she already explained the benefits of being an outcast… Then again, if she forced herself to come through and fight the rumors and all the people who were against her, she could have friends again…for the first time in six years. It was a tough decision. She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering another provocation that felt just as painful to decide on…

Sobs were heard from the bedroom next door all night, until the sun rose the next day. Lily let the tears slip down her face too, but unlike her sister she could keep her crying in a silent level. She knew one thing the day after her parents died—crying was useless. Crying wasn't a miraculous thing that could turn back time so that they could change things before it was too late. Crying wouldn't drain her of the pain and grief and guilt she was feeling, and crying wouldn't stop her sister from hating her. And most of all, crying wouldn't bring her parents back.

So why couldn't she stop doing it?

There was a knock on the door. Not having the strength to answer at the moment, she waited for the Ministry official to barge in on her own. Why did they bother knocking anyway? They would just let themselves in if they waited too long. 

When the Ministry witch saw Lily still in bed, she shifted uncomfortably. "Did you have a good sleep?" she asked tentatively. 

What a stupid question, Lily thought. Is that something you're supposed to ask the day after your parents died? "No, it was the crappiest night of my life, in case you were interested in knowing," she bit out, figuring that making herself angry would lessen the pain. 

The witch flinched at Lily's tone, but Lily didn't give a damn. Couldn't they give her some slack? God, her parents just died, and they were acting like this was just a goddamn slumber party! They didn't need to act like nothing happened. 

"I—I'm sorry. You—they…they didn't deserve it…" the witch said quietly, looking down at the floor. For a moment Lily felt a twinge of guilt. It wasn't the woman's fault that her parents were dead. 

"I'm going to get dressed now," Lily said tonelessly, and the witch nodded and left the room. Lily closed it behind her and put on some fresh clothes. Outside, the window in her room showed the picturesque view of the countryside with a mountain fading into the distance and the birds were chirping gaily. The sound of a new day starting, Lily thought sardonically. The first day of the rest of my depressing life. 

She went out of her room and found the house deserted. They must be outside, she figured, and went out the front door. All the Ministry wizards were standing outside in a clustered group, with Petunia in the middle, still sobbing her eyes off. 

A strict-looking wizard stepped forward as Lily stood in front of the house. "Good morning, Lily," he greeted, albeit a bit stiffly.

"What's so good about it?" Lily muttered under her breath, the familiar pang of grief clutching at her again as she uttered the words.

"I extend my deepest condolences to what happened to your parents," the man continued, not sounding like he did at all. After all, this was high time for Dark wizards, so he probably got called to a murder every morning for the past few weeks, Lily supposed. She wondered what it was like, how hearing of people's deaths and coping with it could become routine. 

"Right. Whatever." Lily crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes at him. Whatever he had to say, it couldn't be worse than last night. 

The man cleared his throat. "I'll make it blunt, Miss Evans. Though you have just gone through this terrible ordeal, you know that you have to move on at some point. Currently, you and your sister Petunia have no guardian, so we must seek an orphanage that would accept you, if ever finding a suitable foster family does not come through. We are more concerned with your magic, however. You have two choices. If you decide to continue your magical education in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, you shall be sent there as soon as arrangements are made, even before the school year, and your sister will live in an orphanage separately. I must warn you that staying in the wizarding world is dangerous, however. Obviously the Dark Lord wants something for you if he would go out of his way to kill your family. If you would rather stay with your sister, which you both need to deal with this incident, you can come with her to the orphanage. But you will have to cut yourself off from the magical world—permanently."

This last statement came as a shock. "W-what do you mean, permanently?" Lily demanded. What kind of decision was this? Either one she chose would mean cutting off one of the two most important things in her life. Petunia was the only family she had left…but if she came with her sister, she wouldn't be allowed to go to the magical world anymore. It was so unfair.

"I'm sure we can work something out, Barty. The young lady has just gone through the worst experience in her life, couldn't you let her emotions heal before putting more pressure on her?" the same witch who woke Lily up said softly.

The wizard shook his head. "Time shall not change anything. It is better that she starts moving on as quickly as she can," he answered coldly. "We await your decision, Lily. Inform us by the end of the day which one you choose." He then Disapparated, perhaps to make the same kind of demanding ultimatum to another distressed family somewhere. 

"I'm sorry this is moving so fast, dear," the woman said gently, moving closer to Lily. "I know that it's hard, but Barty is in much pressure now with all the murders that have been coming up lately. Just tell me if you need help making your decision."

Lily nodded numbly.

The woman sighed. "I'm really sorry," she said again, and Lily snapped out of her stupor. She went back into the house silently.

She was sick of everybody saying they were sorry. But that was definitely better than making a choice between family and her powers. She couldn't live with just one. She needed them both. 

That night, the wizard, Barty Crouch, came back. It was agonizing to think over, but Lily finally had a decision. It involved much tears and headaches, and she wasn't sure if she was making the right one.

"Which do you choose, Lily?" Crouch inquired in a neutral voice.

Lily took a deep breath, glancing at Petunia, who was sitting on the couch opposite Lily's armchair. She averted her eyes from her blonde sister. "I-I choose to stay in the wizarding world," Lily responded. 

Petunia's eyes flashed, though her eyes shone with unmistakable tears. She gave Lily a look that was a mixture of rage, pain, and detestation. "I hate you, Lily!" she yelled. 

It rang in Lily's ears, and she could feel her heart aching again. I hate you, Lily… Hate you… Hate you… Hate you…

*****  

"Lils!" Sirius called, finally spotting Lily in one of the lesser-used hallways of the vast castle. Strangely, she was just staring at a painting of a country house, totally spaced out. That was weird…

Lily didn't respond. _She probably didn't even hear me at all, _he thought, wondering what was bothering Lily now. Oh yeah, maybe it had something to do with the rule she had broken or something… that was what he was here for, wasn't it?

"Lily!" he said again, now beside her. She turned her head toward him, and he was startled to see that her eyes were watery, as if she was about to cry. "Are you OK?"

Lily blinked rapidly and turned away again. "I'm fine," she mumbled, averting her eyes.

"Are you sure? Is something upsetting you?" he pressed. She looked so frail and vulnerable at that moment, not at all like the outcast Lily whose features were as hard as stone. 

"Thanks for the concern, but I'm just fine," she snapped, looking at him again. Sirius winced. He had forgotten about how sharp her tongue was when she was upset. 

"Sorry," he muttered. "I was just trying to help."

Lily's features softened for a moment, and she seemed aware of it, but then her expression became strangely cold. "Listen, Sirius. This isn't working at all. You guys don't need me, and I'm just causing you a lot of trouble." She started to walk away.

"What? What are you talking about?" Sirius asked confusedly, and jogged to keep up with her brisk pace.

Lily halted in the middle of the hall. "Just leave me alone," she said quietly, and started moving again. 

"Huh? I don't understand," Sirius said blankly.

"I can't hang out with you guys anymore," Lily explained. Her voice was weird, shaky and then steady alternately. It was as if she was trying to show him that this didn't affect her. "It's-it's better this way."

Sirius frowned. "But you said you liked hanging out. James really likes you as his friend. Why—?" He stopped short when Lily broke off into a run past him and back where he came from. "Hey, Lily!" he yelled, chasing after her.

"Just go away, Sirius!" Lily shouted back, still running and darting into intersections to try to shake him off. 

All her efforts were futile, of course, since Sirius had the Marauder's Map with him. He caught up with her and grabbed her arm, pulling her back. "Come on, Lils. Does it have something to do with the rumors? You know they're not true…"

Lily just looked away, a pained look on her face.

*****  

"Wonder if Sirius found Lily yet," James wondered out loud. The three remaining marauders were spending a boring afternoon inside their dormitory. Peter and Remus were playing chess, and Remus was getting his ass kicked. It was quite ironic that Peter was having a hard time when it came to academics, but was an ace in wizard chess. 

"From the way things are going these past few days, I'd say probably not. Lily must've put that charm thing on herself to erase herself from the map permanently," Remus remarked, watching as Peter's black bishop smashed his pawn's head to bits.

Peter nodded. "I think he's right. Rumors must really throw Lily. She must be supersensitive to let those kind of things get to her…"

"She's probably like that because she hasn't experienced being caught up in rumors in a long time," James reasoned. "Gods, I wish she's OK… It's all my fault. This wouldn't have happened if I just left her alone, like she wanted."

Remus threw his hands up resignedly as Peter's queen finally checkmated his king. "If you did that, then we wouldn't see a side of Lily that we never noticed before. She _does _have feelings too, even if she's trying to hide them. She needs someone to confide in, but I think a part of her is so used to being an outcast that she doesn't want to get drawn out." He kind of felt empathic about it, too. He was terrified when he first attended Hogwarts, thinking nobody would like him once they knew he was a werewolf…but the marauders befriended him and kept his secret safe, so here he was now. He hoped that he too could do the same for Lily. 

"Wise words from the pseudo-psychologist," Peter teased, packing up his chess set. 

Remus was about to retort when the door burst open and Sirius came in. He looked like he just ran a marathon. "What happened to you?"

Sirius panted and fell with a thump on his bed. 

"So, did you find her, Sirius?" James asked, eager for any news of his friend. 

"Yeah, I found her," Sirius said between gasps. "But I lost her since she did the make-your-name-disappear-from-the-map charm again, and when she turned the corner and I caught up, she was suddenly gone."

"But you talked to her, right? What'd she say?" Peter asked as he threw his chess set into his trunk.

"That's the worse part. She said—" Sirius paused before draining a glass of water.

"What?" his three friends asked in unison impatiently.

"She said she didn't want us to be her friends anymore."

*****  

Lily's legs did the maneuvering for her, and when she looked back she was satisfied to see that Sirius wasn't in tow. How could she have been so stupid? The charm she used wore off after five hours and she hadn't replaced it since she was so distracted…

She stopped for a breather, glad that no one was following her. Actually, glad was a bit of an overstatement… she felt terrible. 

She wished she didn't have to give up her friends. But she knew that doing so would clear up matters, and they could go back to their ordinary lives. And so would she. 

Why did she force herself to do it? Because it was exactly like six years ago. She caused her family so much trouble…so much, in fact, that her parents died for it. And her sister loathed her so much, much more so than she already did when she first found out Lily was a witch. It wasn't worth it to see the people she cared for like that… No. It wasn't worth anything…

This wasn't a life-or-death matter, but the principles were the same. She always did have a knack of attracting trouble back when she was younger, and that stopped as soon as she claimed her rights as an outcast. Now it was back full blast. And she knew she was going to end up suffering for it—again.

She was going to forget about friendship and isolate herself once more. It was better if only she suffered—because she felt that she deserved it. She had to recompense for the problems she caused and it was better if no once else got affected. She had always been a loner. Why stop now?

A single tear ran down her cheek, and she hastily wiped it away. It was time to go back to the outcast Lily Evans. She was never going to attempt to make friends again. 

Never again.

*****  

**AN – **Sorry if Lily's reasons seem so shallow, but I really can't think of anything else. Jeez, I'm so pathetic. * bashes her head repeatedly on a wall ala Sakuragi * And if the punishment for Lily wasn't harsh enough, sorry too. I got called to the office in my school dealing with behavioral offenses the past week because of a major offense ;_; and I slipped past it with no punishment (yet…) So Lily's case can't be any worse, can it? 

Yeah, and did you notice that this chappie was long? I'm trying to pay back for being so late in updating. Hope you didn't forget about my fic or anything… (but if you're reading this, it's obvious you haven't -_- ) Thanx to everybody who reviewed this story! Hmmm… it couldn't hurt if you added a few more, right? * hint hint *


	10. Never Let It Go

Out of Her Shell By Dimantrien 

**AN – **OK. I thought up some explanations…

The charm wears off after five hours since it's supposed to be complicated to do, and even if Lily is a brilliant witch, she is still underage, after all. If she was older and had more advanced powers, she'd probably exceed the one-day limit…but fact is, her powers aren't that complex yet so five hours is as far as she can go. Her punishment was pretty harsh (me evil -_-) but she's a prefect, so breaking a rule requires heavier consequences because she's supposed to set an example for other students. James gets off easy 'cause he's been breaking rules even before he was a prefect, and those times made him closer to Dumbledore somewhat. Besides, if you could see the number of detentions he accumulated over the years, you'd see that he doesn't get off easy either. Anyway, I've done something in the plot that might make Lily's punishment more bearable ;P 

Were those answers rational? Or gratifying, for that matter? Whatever. My brain is still mush. Hope you'll accept those reasons, anyway…

**Chapter 10: Never Let it Go**

"She _what?_" James exclaimed. Sirius' only answer was to nod in a somewhat dejected manner. 

"Yeah, that's all she said. She was biting my head off to leave her alone, but it was weird…like she didn't want to say what she was saying. You know?" Sirius explained.

Remus rolled his eyes. "Sirius, you're not making any sense," he interjected. 

Sirius scowled. "Hey. Who was the one who chased after her through the halls and got yelled at for his efforts?" he demanded. 

James barely registered his friends' bickering. All he was feeling at the moment was a dull ache in his heart. Why would Lily do this? After all they went through…after all his efforts to persuade her that he was going to be a real friend. Come to think of it, he never had a friend who was a girl before. Sure, unlike Sirius who always had a flavor of the week and was still in good terms with most of his exes, he wasn't a dating kind of guy, let alone a player. He never felt close to the opposite gender before.

Unlike now.

Because right now, if it had been someone else, he wouldn't be as shocked or hurt. This was Lily, and she was different. She was a person who never experienced having somebody care about her for the past six years, and James wanted to be the one to do that for her. He wanted to show her that not everybody was cold and indifferent, that there were some others who were capable of loving. That even though most people with that capability wouldn't for the life of them extend it to her, there was somebody who can. And he wanted that to be him. 

"Yo Jamie, stop spacing. What's up with you?" Sirius' voice suddenly invaded his thoughts, and he snapped to attention.

"We have to find her," James concluded firmly, looking at his friends as if daring them to object.

Sirius shook his head. "But Prongs, I just spent my whole afternoon playing hide-and-go-seek with that girl. I don't want to go for another round," he complained, summoning a bottle of butterbeer from his trunk and draining the drink in seconds. 

"Fine. Then _I'll _be the seeker," James stated. 

Remus broke into a smile. "If you don't have any problems looking for a tiny golden ball with wings while in the air, then I don't see how hard it is to find Lily if you're the Seeker," was all he could comment.

"How are you going to look for her if she's disappeared from the map and used a charm on herself to make her invisible?" Peter pointed out. 

James frowned. "I don't know. But I'll find a way. Are you guys coming?" 

Sirius raised his sixth butterbeer bottle, which he seemed to be polishing off in the last few seconds that James and Peter had been talking. "Me pooped. Need to veg." 

Remus shook his head. "I'd love to, but I have to serve a detention about half and hour from now. Professor McGonagall talked to me this morning and told me that we had to do our detentions separately so we wouldn't cause as much trouble."

James looked at Peter expectantly. Peter shook his head no too. "I have to start writing an essay on History of Magic, and it's supposed to be a roll of parchment long."

"Then you can copy mine," James suggested impatiently. Why were all his best friends dropping out on him?

"I can't, Professor Binns pulled me aside in our last class and told me that he suspected me for copying essays. I guess I've been doing it too often. I'm really sorry," Peter said. 

James sighed. "Fine. I'll find her myself." He couldn't put this off for a minute longer. Lily couldn't give up on this, their friendship meant so much to him. He still didn't know why, but it was still that feeling inside him that kept telling him how important Lily was to him. 

"Good luck," Remus called as he left the room. 

And from the size of Hogwarts, he figured he needed as much luck as he was going to get.

*****  

_Where now? _

After shaking off Sirius, Lily decided that she had to go out to the grounds to lower the chances that they were going to find her. The chilly December air whipped her silky red hair into her face, but it was soothing. She had stayed beside the lake for about an hour when snow began to fall. It was weak enough not to be harshly cold, but it was enough to get her more than a little wet. She sighed resignedly and made her way into the castle. It was nearing dusk anyway, and her only chances of avoiding the marauders at dinner would be to eat earlier than them and bolt before they saw her. 

As expected, the Great Hall was deserted. Food was starting to appear on the House tables, and Lily felt the familiar tingle of elven magic in the air. The house elves must have cast spells on the food to keep them fresh and hot until the students came to eat them. Lily walked to the Gryffindor table and pulled up a seat. She waved her wand and muttered a few words, and the platter of fried chicken in front of her issued a few harmless blue sparks that signaled that the elven spell was broken. She ate as fast as she could, finishing when it was five minutes to the normal dinnertime. 

Relieved once again when she reached the entrance to the Hall without running into anybody, she started to make her way to the main staircase. She froze momentarily when she heard the sound of laughter and chatter from said staircase, and then headed for the dungeons. No need for another public spectacle where she was going to be told off for befriending the marauders again. She figured that once Sirius relayed the message to the others, they would turn on her too. 

The tears threatened to fall as her footsteps echoed through the dark, empty hallways. For the first time in her life, she felt what it was like to be normal, and now she had to force herself to part with it. She would certainly miss them… Peter's gullibility and his squeaky, doubtful voice; Sirius' cockiness and wacky behavior; Remus' rational demeanor and calm nature; and…James. He was going to be the one she would miss the most. He was the one who made an effort to befriend her in the first place. 

She didn't know why, but at that moment her heart felt heavier than when her parents died and Petunia's loathing of her, if possible, became hellishly worse. It wasn't just that she was experiencing it all over again, losing somebody she really cared about. She felt that James was the one who could finally bring her back up from her depressed and isolated state—and for a few weeks, he had. But now that was all gone. He probably hated her guts by now. He must think that she was just fooling him, that his friendship meant nothing to her because she could drop it whenever she pleased. 

The crystalline drops ran down her pale cheeks now, and she made no effort to stop them. No matter what she did, she would always lose everything in the end. She started to run faster, just wanting to find a place where she could be assured some privacy.

She turned a corner and, because it was so dark, ran headlong into what felt like a brick wall. A warm, very familiar-scented brick wall. 

*****  

James had been looking for Lily the past hour and a half and found his way to the dungeons. In his distraction to find her, he didn't notice that he collided with somebody in the dim hallway. He looked down to see if he had knocked the person down and his eyes met bright emerald ones. "Lily!" he exclaimed. "I've been looking all over for you!"

Lily's eyes widened for a second. "Y-you've been looking for me?" she stammered, sounding as if she couldn't believe him.

James frowned. "Yeah, I was going crazy trying to find you. Is it true what Sirius said? That you don't want to hang out with us anymore?" he needed to know why. Didn't she seem happy when she was with them? 

Lily's eyes were downcast, and she spoke in a soft tone. "It's not that I don't want to. I just think we can avoid trouble if we go back to how we were." Her voice was so sad, he felt the urge to hug her on the spot. But he felt that if he did, she would run off again.

"How can you say that? We can work it out. You have to stand up to the others a little. If you really want something, then you have to fight for it," he said reasonably, reaching out to touch her shoulder. 

Lily took a step back to avoid his hand and flinched. She actually _flinched. _At him. "You don't know what it's like," she said quietly.

"What do you mean?" James asked her, concerned. "Come on, Lily. I thought you were tough. So what if you hear a couple of false rumors? As long as it's not true, you shouldn't be affected by it. You were the one who told me not to let anybody fool you."

Lily shook her head, her eyes hardening suddenly. "You don't know! It was the same with my family. All I wanted before my parents died was for Petunia and me to be the same again. As soon as she found out I was a witch, she suddenly hated me. We'd been so close before that…" she started to cry, and James felt horrible for perpetuating it. 

"Lily—"

"I tried to prove to her that I was the same old Lily, but she wouldn't listen! No, she hated me right then and there, all because of my magic, all because of the fact that she believed I was a freak. And then, my parents died, and the Ministry said that the Dark Lord was looking for me and they got in the way! I couldn't defend them! It was all my fault! And it was more reason for Petunia to hate me more—you don't know how painful it is for the only surviving family member you have left to loathe you so much that she'd disown you! All I wanted…all I wanted was for my parents to come back, and no matter how much I fight it won't bring them back. It won't bring them back, James! Now, without my sister, I don't have anything…" she sobbed harder, leaning onto the wall for support. 

James felt helpless. Why did he even say those things? Stupid… now what was he going to do to make her feel better? Before he could think of anything, he took hold of Lily's shoulders. "I'm sorry, Lily," he said softly. It pained him so much to see her hurting so much. 

Lily tried to wipe the tears away, her shoulders shaking. "Just—just go away, James. You don't need me, and I'm just a nuisance in your life. You're better off just forgetting about our friendship." More tears spilled down her cheeks, and she turned away from him, attempting to hide how much this was killing her.

James was shocked at her proclamation, and gripped her tighter. "How can you say that? Of all the people I've ever known, you're one of the very few who I want to hold onto as a friend. You mean a lot more to me than you think. Don't give up on this, Lily." How could he tell her that if she did what she was planning to do, he'd suffer too? Hadn't he already proven to her how much he needed her as his friend? 

Lily slowly shook her head. "No, James… I have to. Then you won't have any more problems… That's all I bring. You guys have done a lot for me, but I've done nothing to return that. I'm useless. Everything would be a lot better if we stopped being friends." A steady stream of tears continued from her beautiful, morose eyes. 

He had to do something. He brushed off Lily's tears with the back of his finger, and she trembled slightly. 

"Just let go of me…please…" Lily pleaded. 

"No. You have to swear to me that you won't break off our friendship," James said firmly.

Lily sighed. "No, I can't, James. You know it's the wise decision. Just-just leave me al—"

She cut off her words as soon as she felt James' lips on hers. James was shocked at his own actions, but at the moment it didn't matter, because at the moment he finally found out what made Lily so special to him.

Love.

Lily's arms went limp as she slowly surrendered to the kiss, and James wrapped one arm around her tiny waist, giving her zero chances of pulling away. At that moment, everything felt perfect.

And it was just that: perfect.

*****  

Lily was stunned as James suddenly tilted her chin up and pressed his lips against hers, kissing her softly and sweetly. She instantly felt light-headed, and all the pain she was feeling suddenly dissipated…

She felt his arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her closer, and in the process putting more pressure into the kiss. A tiny voice at the back of her mind was screaming, _No! You're supposed to forget about him! _

But she couldn't pull away. Besides the fact that James was far stronger than her and he had no intentions of letting her go, her mind in itself didn't want the lip lock to end. She hadn't felt this happy ever since her parents were still alive. And that was something she hadn't experienced in a long time. It had been something that she had never wanted to end. 

After what seemed like a few seconds (according to the timer, actually three minutes), James broke off the kiss. Both of them were breathing hard and James gave her an intense look that made her face flush. She opened her mouth to say something but—

"I love you, Lily." 

Those four words rang sweetly in her ears and tears sprung from her eyes—this time in a good way. When was the last time she heard somebody, anybody, say that to her? The now familiar feeling of crystalline drops running down her cheeks assaulted her, and she just let them fall down. 

James' eyebrows wrinkled in concern, and he wiped away the redhead's tears gently. "Don't cry, Lils… I'm sorry if I—"

Lily shook her head, her silky red tresses flying. She put an index finger to his lips to silence him. "No. It's just that—I can't even remember the last time somebody said that to me."

James just hugged her, hiding his shock at the revelation that this sweet, vulnerable girl didn't hear anybody tell her that they loved her in a long time. He knew that she had practically no family left… and no friends either. But he couldn't imagine something as horrible as living through six years without having anybody who cared. 

Lily sighed and rested her head on James' chest, inhaling the soft scent that could only be associated with him.  She wished that she could just stay like this forever…

"Ahem." A voice behind them suddenly caused them to pull apart from each other. Lily blushed furiously as she turned to look at the interrupter—her fellow sixth year Gryffindor: Aurelia Walden. 

There was an amused glint in Aurelia's eyes as they flicked from the mortified Lily to James who looked calm and laid-back, and back again. "Sorry to bother your…uh…I mean…you… but you're blocking the door to the Advanced Potions classroom, so do you mind?"

Lily stepped aside, farther from James, and watched apprehensively as Aurelia stood in the doorway, using a Summoning Charm to whisk a few rolls of parchment she must have left from their previous lesson. She turned back to them, clutching the pieces of parchment in her hands. She smiled somewhat reassuringly at Lily, who was paling whiter than a hospital bed sheet. 

"Don't worry, Lily…your secret's safe with me," she promised solemnly, though her words were hardly convincing since she was smirking. Her tone seemed sincere, though. "Oh yeah…you too, James…sorry again. Gotta go, still have a bunch of stuff in Potions to do…" she stated, looking like she wanted to get away as quickly as possible—at least before Lily or James could cast a Memory Charm on her—or worse, a horrible hex that they could blackmail her with. "So…see ya." She started walking away.

"I'll come with you," Lily said nervously, falling into step behind Aurelia. Before she could follow, though, James grabbed her wrist. 

"Meet me in the common room at twelve o'clock?" he whispered, sending chills down her spine.

Lily flushed even redder, imagining what James could possibly plan for in a midnight rendezvous. "Um…sure." James smiled warmly at her before walking in the opposite direction as Aurelia, slipping into the shadows and disappearing from sight. Lily went to catch up with Aurelia, who was already ten paces away.

"Oh, sorry about that. See, I don't really feel comfortable listening to other people's private conversations, so I left when James had a quick word with you," Aurelia apologized as Lily caught up. "You don't mind, right?" 

Lily shook her head. "Of course not. Um…do you mind if I ask you a favor—?"

"Not to tell anybody about you and James?" Aurelia interrupted gently. 

Lily nodded, her cheeks reddening again.

"No problem. Like I said, your secret's safe with me… Do I really look like I'm a nosy gossipmonger or something?" Aurelia joked.

"No, no, I-I didn't mean it like that," Lily answered, biting her lip. 

Aurelia laughed. "I was just joking, Lily. C'mon, let's eat dinner."

"I already did," Lily replied quickly. Aurelia raised her eyebrows.

"Oh? Well, I guess it must be hard when the whole school's against you, huh? Don't mind them, they'll get sick of their own bull eventually. As long as you ignore them and let them know you don't give a damn what they say, they'll lay off you," Aurelia advised. 

"Thanks." Lily stared intently at the blue-eyed blonde, wondering if she wasn't one of those people who seemed nice at first but stabbed you in the back once they gained your trust. For the six years she'd been a dorm mate with Aurelia, the girl didn't seem like that type at all. 

They walked in silence as they ascended the stairs out of the dungeons and into the entrance hall. Lily expected Aurelia to go inside the Great Hall, but she was surprised when the girl walked right past the entrance with Lily.

"I thought you were going to eat dinner," Lily said, puzzled.

Aurelia shrugged. "I'm not really hungry. I just ate a snack a couple of hours ago…besides, I think you need the company while your man's chowing down in the Hall."

Lily reddened at the words "your man" but didn't comment on it. "You don't have to do that for me, you know. I'm fine being alone…"

Aurelia just shook her head. "It doesn't bother me. Besides, I have this weird tendency to skip a meal occasionally… call it a sporadic diet." She grinned at her own remark.

"But…I don't understand… Why do you want to accompany me? I'm just an outcast." Lily still didn't get why certain people were suddenly getting on friendly terms with her this past few weeks. She didn't even ask for it.

"Don't say that. You're a nice girl, Lily, and you shouldn't be keeping to yourself. There are a lot more people out there other than some mindless dolts in Hogwarts who believe that wearing trendy clothes and having good gossip ready at their dispense means that they're part of the 'in' crowd. That nobody would think twice of badmouthing them because they're not weird. I'm not saying you are, but I like the way you can stand up to what you want and ignore what others say about you."

Lily sighed and remembered how she couldn't even try to make her friendship with the marauders work out. She didn't fight for what she wanted. She could still clearly see the disappointed and shocked look on Sirius' face when she told him that they couldn't be friends anymore. What was wrong with her? Couldn't she take the pressure of a few stupid rumors that didn't have an ounce of truth in them? If she wanted them as friends, then why couldn't she fight for it? "I guess I don't deserve their friendship after all," she muttered under her breath.

"Sorry—what?" Aurelia said, squinting at the serious expression on Lily's face. 

"Oh—no, it's nothing," Lily replied quickly. They reached the portrait of the Fat Lady and stopped.

Aurelia raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Koosalagoopagoop," she told the Fat Lady.

"Try saying it ten times as quick as you could, dear, that's a challenge," the Fat Lady said before swinging forward to admit them.

Aurelia laughed as they climbed into the portrait hole. "She must forget that we're sixteen now. We stopped playing that long-password game in third year." Her expression turned serious again. "I know that we haven't been that close this past six years, and that I can't gain your trust easily. I guess that…I guess I just took it all for granted when you were around. Sorry."

Lily nodded, wondering why Aurelia was apologizing to _her. _It had always been her choice to keep away from other people like they had a disease she could catch—she probably already held royal rights on the word _misanthrope _for that. But Aurelia was so nice to her. _Lily _was the one who took Aurelia's friendliness for granted. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have thought too little of how you always attempted to have a friendly conversation with me. I'm sure your friends wouldn't like it too much if you engage in a talk with the school outcast." She was always causing trouble for others. 

"Nah, they're not like that. Some, yes, but that's just their pride that's in the way. I'm sure that if you hang out with them, they'll like you," Aurelia answered. She opened the door to the girls' dormitory and went on inside. "So, what do you want to do? Wizard chess or a makeover?" She grinned as Lily shifted uncomfortably at the mention of "makeover."

"Wizard chess. Save makeovers for before the Christmas ball," Lily responded. She only registered the meaning of her words when Aurelia gave her a full-fledged smile, showing off her perfectly straight white teeth. 

Lily Evans had just accepted another friendship, even right after she had just vowed she would never have another one ever again.  

*****  

The four marauders left the Great Hall late as usual, since Sirius wolfed down a food amount big enough to feed a whole village. And that was just the main course. 

"What's up with you, Rem?" Sirius asked the werewolf, who appeared deep in thought.

Remus looked up and smiled. "Oh, I was just wondering how you'd survive once you grew up and your parents don't need to support you anymore. The cost of your food consumption alone could probably diminish your monthly salary in about a week." Sirius scowled.

James smirked. "Try three days," he snickered.

"From the way you're saying things, you're implying that I'm a total pig," Sirius said in a mock offended tone.

James adopted a solemn countenance. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did we leave that part out? You _are _a total pig," he teased. Sirius whacked him on the arm. Remus and Peter laughed.

"Hmph. You're just jealous of the fact that I can consume that much food and still be built. Compared to the speed of my metabolism, you three are incompetent," Sirius retorted.

Peter pretended to kowtow at Sirius' feet. "We bow down to your superior capacity in burning body fats, o Gluttonous One," he proclaimed in pretend praise.

"Oh, shut up," Sirius said, rolling his eyes and turning the corner. He bumped right into Professor McGonagall, whose stack of papers flew everywhere at the impact. 

"Black, you were given eyes to see and feet to avoid collisions. Why on earth would you not have seen me walking towards you with a three-foot pile of quiz parchments?" McGonagall said irritably, watching as the four boys scurried around to pick up the loose pieces of parchment.

"So sorry about that, Professor M. I was temporarily blinded with your radiating beauty," Sirius said charmingly. 

"Flattering comments won't give you higher grades, Black. Oh, and Potter, I need to have a word with you about your detentions." Professor McGonagall started to walk away, James following behind her with a confused expression on his face. His three friends waited a little ways away from them.

"Poured it on a little thick, didn't we?" Peter joked to Sirius.

"Yeah, yeah. You know I only said that to avoid getting another detention this week. You can keep McGonagall's temper at bay if you shower her with compliments," Sirius said sarcastically. He watched as James started to walk back toward them.

"What did she say?" Remus asked curiously. 

James shrugged. "The usual." But his eyes were averted, as if there was something he didn't want to tell them.

Sirius was the only one who noticed, but he decided not to push it. 

Even he could exercise self-restraint sometimes. 

*****  

Lily glanced up at the clock in the girls' dormitory. The lights in the room were off, and her four roommates were fast asleep. The clock read 11: 55. 

She grabbed her silk lounging robe (don't ask. It can't be a bath robe 'cause it's _silk._) and shrugged into it, aware that her heart was beating faster than it had ten minutes ago. It was amazing how James had this effect on her. Before, when they were just friends, she always felt that it was weird how her gloomy mood lifted when she saw him, but now she understood. She couldn't recognize it before because it had been such a long time since there was another person who cared this much about her.

She went down the stairs and paused at the bottom step, peering around at the dim common room. It was empty. Shrugging, she went on ahead and bumped her shoulder with another person who, apparently, had rushed down the boys' staircase like she had at the girls'. 

"Hey. Sorry about that," James said with a grin, and she felt her heart beating at a staccato rate. Before they could even make it to the couch, James brought her close to him and caught her in a sweet, tender lip lock. 

Her breath caught at the swift motion, but she responded, pressing her lips firmly against his and running her hands through his unruly jet-black hair. She shivered as she felt his fingers touching her face, and after a few more seconds she reluctantly pulled away from him. 

James smiled. "Hey. We can't get any talking done if we don't actually sit down first. Then when we finish discussing some things, we can continue with…the fun stuff." He grinned knowingly and led her to the couch in front of the fireplace. Lily watched as he brought his wand out and muttered _"Incendio," _pointing the want at the hearth. A cheerfully cracking fire immediately sprang up there, illuminating the common room. 

"What are we going to talk about?" Lily asked.

James looked at her with intense eyes, and she actually felt the hairs at the back of her neck stand up. "You weren't serious when you said you didn't want to be friends with Sirius and the others, right?" he said.

It was hard to focus on an answer when he was staring at her intently like that. "I—well, I guess…I _was _serious," Lily admitted. "It's just that—"

"You don't want that to happen," James finished for her quietly. Lily, surprised at how easily he could read her thoughts, stayed silent. "It's easy to tell, Lily. I know that you like being with us. Giving up the only thing that makes you happy is wrong. And for that matter, why would you give it up in the first place? It doesn't make sense." He shook his head.

Lily sighed. "I know. But it _does _make sense—to me. You know what will happen if I always hang out with you guys. I don't care if they come after me, but the problem is that you guys will be affected too. It just makes me guilty that I'm causing you all this trouble—when you have the option of avoiding it."

"And avoiding it means avoiding _you_," James pointed out. "We don't want you to avoid us, Lily. What reason would make you think we'd do the same to you?"

"It's for the best," Lily argued.

"For the best? Lily, the 'for the best' you're talking about is for the best of the gossip hunters and dirt diggers of Hogwarts. 'For the best' isn't for _your _best—because the best thing for you is a group of people who'll be there for you and make you feel like you belong, not more suffering to add to your life. And because we're your friends, what's best for you is best for us. Don't do this to us, Lily. And most importantly, don't do this to yourself," James said in a gentle voice.

Lily's eyes watered, and she blinked the tears away. "But Sirius and Peter—they know that other people's opinions matter. The four of you are the most popular guys in Hogwarts. Any news that has to do with you spread around the school faster than wildfire. You know your friends, James. And you saw Sirius. He was upset when Peter told us about the rumors." 

James shook his head. "I admit that Sirius does have a superficial side to him but," he took a deep breath, "inside, he's really down to earth. And he doesn't want you to go either. Why else would he search the whole castle for you?"

All the statements that he pointed out made sense. "But what about the other students?" Lily whispered.

"They don't matter. Who cares what they think?" James said, smiling at her.

"I do," Lily replied quietly. James' smile faltered.

"I thought they didn't matter to you before." 

"Yes, but this is different. This isn't just about me," Lily answered sadly. She stared at the flames before her, avoiding James' eyes.

James cupped his hand on her chin and turned her head slightly so that she faced him. "I don't care what other people think. If you want something, you have to believe that you can attain it, and you have to do something to actually get it. You can do anything you set your mind to. You have to fight. And you don't have to listen to what others say, because it's what you believe that matters. Nothing else does." 

Lily knew he was right. She was just being paranoid. But she couldn't come out of her outcast state just like that, as if nobody would notice that she was suddenly engaging herself in the world of socialism. She had to do this bit by bit. "O-okay. But I'll have to think about it first… I can't just go out there and announce that I'm officially a non-outcast or something," she voiced her thoughts out loud to him.

James nodded. "Then what _will_ you do?" 

"Can you just not show anybody about my friendship with you guys and…about us? At least, not right away…" she trailed off uncertainly.

James hugged her, and she sighed in relief. He understood, and he cared enough to let her do things her way. That was enough. "All right. But promise me that you're going to face them when you can deal, and that you'll stand up for what you want." 

"I promise," Lily reassured. The student body didn't have the right to decide who she could or couldn't be friends with, and they most definitely didn't have the right to tell her that she should be an outcast forever. And she would tell them what was on her mind eventually. Right now she still had to learn how to handle the pressure.

"I've got some good news," James announced after a moment of silence. 

"That's nice. I haven't had any of that this past few days," Lily muttered. James laughed.

"Well, it's just that since you still want to keep the whole friendship thing secret, then there's a way we can see each other at a time other than the middle of the night," he said, gesturing at the darkness outside. 

"How?" Lily asked.

"McGonagall talked to me a few hours ago about my detentions, and she said that she paired the two of us in all of them. Something about promoting 'prefect unity,' I think. All the detentions she chooses are in places where no students are around so that they can't give us a hand on things," James explained.

"Oh, so the only times we have a chance to see each other during the day is when we do some sort of tedious task like waxing all the floors on the fifth floor or dusting the hundreds of statues in Hogwarts." 

James shrugged. "Hey, you can't be picky about detentions," he joked. "The teachers who assign it aim to make the student as horrendously miserable as possible."

"Way to make a rule breaker feel better," Lily said sardonically, but she smiled. 

Things were finally looking up.

*****  

**AN – **Yessss!!! I finished the tenth chappie. Now if I can only finish the bad stuff…like homework and projects and school whatnots. 

**Raei Dagger: **You call this a chapter???

**Dimantrien: **Shaddap, I have writer's block. 

**Raei Dagger: **That's always your excuse.

**Dimantrien: **Well, excuse me if my lackadaisical prose doesn't gratify your nonsensically high standards, o Iniquitous One.

**Raei Dagger: **In English, please.

**Dimantrien: **That _is _English, you dolt.

**Raei Dagger: **I'm not a dolt!

**Dimantrien: *** nods her head * Oh, of course not. How could I have been mistaken? You're no dolt, you're a bai—

**Raei Dagger: **Urusai!

**Dimantrien: **I don't think there are many Japanese-speaking readers who are into Harry Potter, Raei.

**Raei Dagger: **You never know. Besides, the sentiment still stands.

**Dimantrien: **Whatever. Someday, I'll flood one of my reviews in RoaSC with your whole nickname—uncensored. Bwahahahaha.

**Raei Dagger: **Abazureon'na.

**Dimantrien: **Nope, that's Yankee. Let's go. We have a lot of homework to do…

**Raei Dagger: *** groans * Don't remind me.

**Dimantrien: **Well, next time, tell your adviser _not _to pile ridiculous masses of schoolwork on our poor heads. 

**Raei Dagger: **Right. And get myself an offense? No thank you.

**Dimantrien: **Lazy-ass coward.

**Raei Dagger: **Shut up. If one of us has to be lazy, it's you. For every chapter you upload I would've already uploaded three or four. 

**Dimantrien: **Point taken. But if only I had my _own_ computer, and wouldn't need to share with three other PC maniacs, I'd be more punctual in updating…

I don't write romance that well, so sorry if it doesn't come out good. Adding that to my lack of enthusiasm in writing (you would too if you knew you had a ton of homework to do after you finished a chapter), I don't know if my work is remotely satisfactory even to my own standards… I'll feel so much better once March 12-14 pass and I'll be free from school for two months and a couple of weeks. Summer vacation in the tropics is the life.

"Play is a full time obligation. Work is something you do in your free time…"

~Dimantrien ;P


	11. For Real

Out of Her Shell 

**By Dimantrien**

**Chapter 11: For Real**

Lily and her four friends decided that they first had to let the rumors settle down before hanging out together in public again. This made Lily breathe easier; she still wasn't used to walking the halls and seeing people pointing and whispering about her at the corner of her eye. When she was an outcast, she was never the center of attention and she liked it that way. But now things had changed.

She knew she had to give up her old isolated security to accept that change, if she wanted to move on. She shouldn't be lonely forever. Or was the right term _couldn't_?

Silently, she walked to the Charms classroom, dodging some people in the crowded hallway who deliberately tried to bump her—hard. She winced in pain as an unknown assailant's shoulder collided with hers. She turned around to see who the idiot was, but there were so many people she couldn't be sure who exactly did it. 

Lily rolled her eyes and sighed. Had people always been this immature? If so, then she had no idea that the world had become this depressing. Where had all the decent, level-headed people gone? Back when she was living like a Muggle, this never happened.

Then again, if she hadn't discovered that she was a witch, Petunia wouldn't have hated her, and there was a big chance that her parents wouldn't have died. 

Pushing away the depressing thoughts that once again clouded her brain, she walked into the classroom and sat down on a desk at the back. Three more students had come in ahead of her, and she was disappointed to see that none of them were marauders or at least Aurelia Walden. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers.

The Gryffindors in the room the three other girls she shared a dorm with, aside from Aurelia. She couldn't remember the last time she talked to any of them. 

One of them, Pandora—a brunette with blue-green eyes—came up to her. Lily narrowed her eyes suspiciously. What rude comment did Prissy Princess Pandora think up now that could hopefully 'offend' her? She recalled the past incidents wherein Pandora and her two other ditzy friends had made lame attempts to scare Lily to keep away from the marauders—as if they owned them. Pathetic. 

Pandora plopped down on the seat beside Lily, a saccharine smile so obviously fake plastered on her delicate features. "Why, hello, Lily," she crooned in what she thought must be a pleasant voice. 

Lily raised an eyebrow at her, her suspicions increasing. Ookay, so the bimbette was acting weird now. She wondered what Pandora ate that made her a dose more scatterbrained than usual…

"Oh, don't look so spiteful, dear. I just want to apologize for the fights we had the past few days…it was only a misunderstanding. Do forgive me and my friends, no?" Pandora gestured at the other two people in the room who were listening in to their conversation. 

Lily folded her arms. _Dear? Apologize? _What was Pandora up to?

"You see, I know you've tried to tell everybody that you've got nothing going on with one of your…friends, right? But no one believes you. If it's any assurance, I guarantee you that Ingrid, Heather and me are totally on your side now." Her voice was dripping with sugar. 

Lily snorted, but didn't bother to reply. She wasn't in the mood for small talk, especially to a flirty bitch that obviously just wanted something from her…

"So. Friends?" Pandora said sweetly, but the disdain in her eyes betrayed her. Lily's face showed no emotion.

"Cut the crap, Pandora, because there is just no way that I'm gonna be friends with a bitch like you," Lily snapped, just as the other students walked in. Sirius grinned and gave her a thumbs-up sign, and Remus, remembering their solution to the rumor problem, slapped it down and gave Sirius a quick glare before smiling wearily at Lily. He looked tired, and there were purple shadows under his eyes. _Huh. Wonder what that's about…_

Pandora's eyes flashed and she gave Lily the Look of Death before flouncing away in a mass of brown curls. Lily rolled her eyes. 

"An encounter with one of the prissy types, eh? Your attackers are getting lamer and lamer," Aurelia commented, sliding into the desk next to Lily's. 

Lily smiled slightly. "Dunno what they want now, though. Takes one to know one."

Aurelia shook her head, glancing quickly to the front where Pandora and her friends were then looking back at Lily. "If there's one thing those flirts want, it's the marauders. Not like they'll stand a chance since trying to start a fight with you would only make things worse for them…" she trailed off in a low tone.

"I guess you're right. It's just that…why are people acting so childish about all this? It's not like I'm stealing the marauders from them. I never said anything about keeping them to myself, did I? Besides, if they're really popular, then they must already have a lot of other friends." 

Aurelia just shrugged and grinned. "Takes one to know one," she repeated Lily's earlier statement. "But personally, I think they're just jealous that you can get close to the marauders faster than they could, and probably to them that's a major insult because they think that they should be better at socializing than an outcast. I don't think they get it, though. Social status isn't the only factor of making friends. A real friend won't need to be trendy and 'in' if they want somebody to like them. They just do what they want to do and ignore anybody who jeers at them for their uniqueness. You'll know they're for real, because they're the ones who stand up for what they want and don't let others affect them."

Just then Professor Flitwick walked in and squeaked his usual greeting, and was met with a round of unenthusiastic "Good morning, Professor Flitwick" in return. 

Lily's new friend smiled and shrugged. "Sorry for the preaching bit. It just pours out of my mouth for some reason," she apologized.

Lily shook her head. "I don't mind. It actually makes sense." And as they cut off their conversation and focused on the Charms lesson, Lily pondered Aurelia's words, their meaning seeping into her brain and their reality opening up her closed mind.

It was the reality she had refused to give in to.

*****  

Lunchtime. The four marauders were hanging out under a tree on the grounds, eating in a traditional picnic-style way and stealing their provisions from the house-elves in the kitchen… No, stealing would sound too mean. The house-elves _did _willingly give them the stuff…

"A Knut for anybody's thoughts. Anybody?" Sirius asked while munching on an apple, slightly exasperated at his friends' silence. A small mountain of food was in front of him.

Remus smiled, his exhaustion still shown from his previous transformation. "My thoughts cost more than a mere Knut, my friend," he joked. 

Peter shook his head. "Nothing much to share here," he stated.

James didn't respond.

"What about you, Prongs? Here's a Knut—no, a Sickle. A certain somebody here said that a Knut was too low priced for his precious thoughts." 

James sighed and turned to look at him. "I just can't wait anymore. Why can't Lily hang out with us now? It's not like the rest of the student body are the judges to who's supposed to be friends with whom or not."

Remus shrugged. "It was Lily's choice," he answered simply.

"Personally, though, I think there's nothing we should be afraid of," Peter suddenly spoke up, his expression solemn as he looked out at the lake. "We don't need anybody's consent other than our own. What right do they have to decide who or who we shouldn't befriend?" he asked them.

Sirius grinned. "Hey, for once you're using your brain there, Wormtail," he teased, messing up Peter's hair.

Peter scowled and attempted to fix the damage Sirius had done to his head. "Are you implying that I'm stupid?" he retorted, mock glaring at his cocky friend.

Sirius looked up at the sky, pretending to think. "Nah…" he said slowly. "A little clueless and dimwitted, but not really…stupid."

The shorter boy rolled his eyes and threw a balled-up napkin at Sirius' head. "That's basically the same," he said exasperatedly. 

"Fine, fine, you're not a dimwit…" Sirius laughed. "Though that would be more than I can say for most of the people at Hogwarts…" 

Remus shook his head. "Not dimwitted, they're _narrow-minded. _It's pathetic that we're waiting for them to give us the go-ahead on being Lily's friend… I mean, Wormtail's right. What are we so afraid of?" 

"It's not us, it's Lily who's not ready to be up-front with all those people," James corrected. "We really can't do much of anything right now."

"You mean, Lily's afraid of what the other students would say about her?" Remus asked. James shrugged.

Sirius stood up. "Well, I don't see a problem in all of this. There's only one way to end this boring wait." 

"Which is?" Remus asked with raised eyebrows.

Sirius shrugged and smiled his trademark smile. "Make Lily get over her fear of people's opinions. We're the perfect cure for a misanthrope, don't you think?"

*****  

The sound of female chatter in the halls was increasingly louder than it normally was—not that the normal tone was on the soft side anyway. Still, Lily figured that something must be up.

"What's everyone so excited about?" Lily asked Aurelia, who had volunteered to accompany Lily since she couldn't hang out with the marauders. They both thought it more reasonable because Aurelia wasn't as popular as the marauders and wouldn't attract as much attention as them. 

Aurelia laughed. "Oh, where's your head been all this time, Lily? Have you forgotten the Christmas ball that's coming up? Today's the last day before our holiday break."

"Oh yeah," Lily replied unenthusiastically, realization dawning on her delicate features. "So, I'm guessing pretty much the whole student body consisting of fourth years and above are going to stay in Hogwarts for the whole break?" 

Her friend nodded. 

"Great, more people to get on my case," Lily muttered under her breath, but Aurelia heard her.

"Cheer up. It's the Christmas holidays, remember?"

Lily sighed and watched Professor Flitwick walking past with a swarm of fairies following him. "Christmas. What of it?" she said dully. They said Christmas was a time of happiness and excitement and being with the people you loved…being with your family. She could barely remember how her Christmas was like six years ago. What use was celebrating it if her family _wasn't _here anymore?

Aurelia was silent. She must figure that Christmas in Lily Evans' definition was slightly more twisted than everybody else's. "You _are_ staying behind, right? For the ball and everything," she spoke up after a few moments.

Shrugging, Lily replied, "I guess so. It's not like staying in the orphanage is any more fun than being here." 

"Your biological family isn't the _only _family you'll be a part of in this lifetime, Lily," Aurelia said quietly. "Just remember that no matter what happens, there are people who care about you and are just the same way."

Lily stared at her, startled. "How'd you know what I was thinking?" she asked, bewildered.

Aurelia smiled. "It's a gut feeling. Now stop being so down in the dumps. We've got a Hogsmeade weekend ahead of us, and we have to make lists about what to buy—"

"What for?" Lily said sharply as Aurelia dragged her down the hallway.

The blue-eyed girl laughed and shook her head. "Don't tell me you've forgotten all about Christmas shopping and the gift tradition." 

Lily's eyes clouded over. "Well, if I had someone to share that tradition with for the last six years, then maybe I wouldn't have," she snapped.

Aurelia stopped in her tracks, an expression of hurt and guilt on her face. 

Lily sighed. She hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but she wasn't really keen on this subject, among various others. But what could she do? She couldn't avoid it, just like she couldn't avoid trusting other people eventually. "Look. I'm sorry. But just imagine me, the school outcast, a year ago, handing out gifts to random people like a wanna-be Santa and looking like a complete idiot." She decided to go for a lighthearted response.

Aurelia cracked a smile, looking a little better. "It's hard to imagine," she remarked, resuming her brisk pace once again. 

"That's what I meant," Lily said with a nod, following her.

"Now I wonder what you'd look like in a Santa costume…" Aurelia smirked as she stared up at the ceiling, pretending to look lost in thought.

"Don't go that far," Lily warned. "I may be coming out to the world of the living, but I'm not going to prance around with a bunch of flying reindeer, adapt a jolly laugh and start spewing holiday wishes and greetings of good cheer just yet." As Aurelia chuckled, she heard a creaking sound just behind her and turned around.

"What's wrong?" Aurelia asked.

"Nothing," Lily answered, narrowing her eyes at the space behind them. She walked back a few paces with Aurelia trailing at her heels. As soon as she stopped, the creaking grew louder. 

"What was that?" Aurelia looked around for the source of the creak. The hallway was deserted, and there wasn't a door in sight that could possibly make the creaking noise. 

"Is it me, or is the floor we're standing on sinking—?" Lily started to say, but at her last word the floor dropped out from under them and they fell into the pit of darkness beneath. 

*****  

FLUMP! There came a sound of something heavy coming into contact with a giant cushion. The 'something heavy' groaned. "What the shit—" 

"Tsk, tsk, Lily, what unbecoming language," Sirius tutted, grinning widely at the sight of the redhead sprawled on their "landing place." 

"OW!" Another person had fallen in. Sirius squinted and focused in on the features of Aurelia Walden. 

He frowned. "I didn't know you had company." 

Somebody behind him laughed. "Come now, Padfoot, don't you think Lily's capable of making other friends? What kind of friend are you?" 

"Is that you, Remus?" Lily called, standing up and giving Aurelia a hand. 

"Yep. The Almighty James Potter ordered us to fetch you, Lady Lily," Remus deadpanned, walking towards one of the walls of the underground chamber and fiddling with something. 

"If that was the motive, why didn't he come here himself, and why did you have to abduct me too?" Aurelia asked, rubbing her side where she had fallen. 

Sirius shrugged. "Because he's a lazy sloth, and because you just happen to be lucky—or unlucky if you'd like to put it. Call yourself kidnapped by association." 

"That's a glamorous way of saying it," Aurelia quipped. 

The wall in front of Remus opened, revealing a wide but dark corridor. Lily and Aurelia followed Sirius to the entrance. 

"Ladies first," he said mock gentlemanly, gesturing at the dark. 

Lily rolled her eyes. "And randomly fall into another pit accidentally while you laugh your head off at our expense? No, thank you." Sirius shrugged and led the way, with the other three right behind him. A quarter of an hour later, they were still groping around in the pitch-black darkness, their only source of light coming from the tip of their wands. 

"Aren't we there yet?" Lily asked Sirius for the fifth time in the last five minutes. 

Sirius sighed, appearing to have a massive headache, as if Lily were an impatient child that he was taking along a road trip from California to the East Coast. "I told you already, we're _nearly there—"_

"What is the exact definition of _nearly, anyway? For me it's a couple of meters from here, but for you it's probably a kilometer off—"_

"The exit's just out through there, that doorway where the light's streaming in," Remus told Lily patiently, pointing ahead.

"There is a god," Lily sighed in relief, looking more than grateful to leave the musty passage. 

"Where are we, anyway?" Aurelia inquired as they exited the passage. They seemed to be in some sort of woods, and the opening of the passage looked like the entrance to a cave. Sirius waved his wand and an enormous rock slab beside the opening moved to block the entrance. 

Sirius stepped back and faced them. "There! C'mon, ladies—"

Remus cleared his throat.

"—and gentleman," Sirius added quickly. "Hogsmeade's just a road away, so—"

"Excuse me for asking, but since you were the one who dragged us into this, conveniently forgetting to ask us for our consent, _why exactly are we going to Hogsmeade?"  Lily interrupted._

Sirius threw his hands up in the air. "Jeez, can't you guys just let me finish a sentence for once? We're going because we're giving you a chance to do your Christmas shopping a little early—you wouldn't want to be stampeded by a couple hundred students running around in the Christmas rush tomorrow, would you?"

Lily shrugged. "I wouldn't know, 'cause I've never done any dumb Christmas shopping for the last—"

"Yada, yada, yada. You've gotta stop thinking about the past, Lily. No offense there, but after six years, you know that at some point you have to leave it behind, right?" Sirius interjected in a gentler tone. 

Aurelia tapped her watch. "If you guys are planning on doing any decent shopping, then we better move fast. It's almost half past five."

"What?!" Sirius exclaimed. Without another word, he sprinted to the open road a little ways ahead of them, slightly hidden by the trees. The others, exchanging exasperated looks, shook their heads and followed suit.

*****  

As soon as they were in front of the Three Broomsticks (Lily kept looking around; she was the only above-second-year student who had never set foot in Hogsmeade before), Remus brought up the question that Sirius had apparently forgotten to ask the two girls when they first fell into the underground chamber. 

"Um…question. Did you guys bring any money?" 

Aurelia and Lily looked at Sirius pointedly, clearly implying that it was Sirius' fault that they didn't have any loot on them.

"No," Lily answered. At the same time, Aurelia shook her head.

"Hey, you can still use the summoning charm, right?" Sirius said defensively, albeit a bit guilty. 

Lily quickly vetoed the idea. "You want us to summon a couple of heavy pouches across Hogwarts castle and risk their colliding with innocent people's head along the way? No thanks." 

"If it was Severus Snape's head, I wouldn't mind," Sirius muttered under his breath. "Fine, so that won't work. Do you want to go back and get your money the hard way?" he asked in a louder voice.

Lily shook her head and grinned. "Nope, too much of a hassle. Besides, since you were the one who so conveniently forgot to ask us if we brought any money or tell us that we were supposed to spend large amounts of it, you're going to be responsible."

"I don't think I understand…" Sirius said, his eyebrows creased together.

Aurelia clapped. "Sirius' treat!" 

"Wha—? I didn't say anything about—" Sirius tried to protest as they dragged him inside. Remus trailed after them, snickering. "This isn't funny! And what about Remus? He was with me, he should've—"

"A tantrum is unsuitable for a marauder, Padfoot," somebody in the booth to their left called. Another person at the same table chuckled.

The four turned at the source of the voice. Remus plopped down on one of the seats and nodded at his two friends. "Hey, Wormtail, Prongs," he greeted. "Sirius is just a little bit distressed, see. Forgot to ask the ladies if their carrying the most essential thing they need for a shopping spree." 

"What's with the aliases?" Aurelia asked. "Padfoot, Wormtail, Prongs…anyone would think you were calling each other animals," she commented.

The marauders didn't even flinch. "Oh, you know us…" James improvised. "We like to be unique. None of that shorten-your-name-and-voila-you-have-a-nick stuff."

"I thought nicknames are pseudonyms that you can relate to a person," Lily said. "Why do you call Sirius 'Padfoot' instead of Monkey Boy?" 

"Hey!" Sirius protested, scowling at Lily. 

"How do you relate Sirius with a monkey?" Peter asked, his forehead creasing.

"Bananas," Lily said vaguely, sliding into the seat next to James. 

"Sirius likes bananas?" Remus misinterpreted, confused.

"He eats a lot of bananas?" Peter asked at the same time.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Sirius always goes bananas," she remarked, standing up again and strolling over to the counter to order. Aurelia followed her.

"I don't get it," Peter said, scratching his head.

James glanced at him. "I do. Lils was implying that Padfoot is a demented loony—"

"Which I'm not," Sirius interjected. He threw up his hands. "Why is everybody making fun of me today?!" 

Lily returned to their table, holding a tray with four brimming mugs of butterbeer. Behind her, Aurelia's arms were laden with various food items.

Remus stared at them as they settled back on their seats. "I thought you both didn't have any money. How do you suppose you're going to pay for all those food and drinks?"

Lily passed him a mug and took a swig from her own. "I told the lady at the counter to put it on Sirius' tab," she explained.

"WHAT!" Sirius exclaimed, causing everyone else in the bar to look in their direction. They all looked back at their previous activities, developing the "Oh-it's-just-Sirius-again" expression on their faces. 

"She didn't doubt us, and she said that you always used to treat other girls here all the time whenever you're in Hogsmeade," Aurelia added, looking thoroughly amused.

"Those were _dates!_" Sirius said defensively. "Dates with _pretty _girls who don't keep on mocking my every move—"

"Are you saying that we're ugly?" Lily challenged.

"_And_ insufferable?" Aurelia chimed in defiantly.

Remus chuckled. James smirked, and Peter looked out the window, trying not to laugh, but his shaking shoulders gave him away.

"What kind of friends are you?" Sirius demanded, making the other marauders crack up even more. 

"The kind who loves their friend because they know that he can always give them a good laugh," James said with a straight face. 

Aurelia couldn't quite conceal her snicker, and Lily appeared mildly entertained. It was a wonder how she could pull that look off without smiling or crinkling her eyes. 

Sirius rolled his eyes. "If you ask me, _you're the ones going bananas," he grumbled, chugging down the rest of his butterbeer. "I'm off to Zonko's," he announced, standing up. "So that I can actually buy something for __myself without somebody else diminishing all my cash." They watched him leave the bar, the tinkling bells over the entrance door ringing. _

"He isn't _really _mad, is he?" Aurelia asked nervously.

Remus leaned back into his chair. "Nah. He's not that shallow. He just likes to make a big deal out of things so that we'd feel really guilty for teasing him and do something to repay for it," he deadpanned.

James laughed. "It used to work, but after six years we pretty much figured out all the tricks he's got up his sleeve."

Aurelia's face relaxed. "Well, I'm done. Wanna come with me and check out some gowns for the Christmas ball, Lily?" she offered.

Lily frowned. "Who said anything about wearing—" 

Aurelia stood up and dragged Lily out of her chair. "Aw, come on, you have to look stunning for your date, right?" she insisted, winking at James. James looked away, the slightest tinge of red on his cheeks. Obviously, he hadn't forgotten her run-in with the two of them yesterday. 

Fortunately Lily didn't see the little exchange between her two friends, and she reluctantly agreed. "Fine, but I'm not buying anything," she said firmly.

Aurelia smiled knowingly. "Of course not. You'll be purchasing everything you need on Saturday, when you have your money with you." 

"I am _not—_" Lily's sentence was cut off as the two of them exited the bar.

"Things are getting more and more interesting by the day," Remus commented.

"Yeah. Before you know it, Lily will build up enough confidence to face the rest of the school," Peter piped up. 

James gave them a weak smile. "You may be right there," he agreed. _But she still hasn't learned to smile more._

*****  

The girls' dormitory creaked open, and Lily trudged in, flopping onto her bed with a groan. Thankfully, Pandora and her 'followers' were nowhere in sight. 

It had been five days after the six's meeting in Hogsmeade, and the start of the Christmas holidays two days ago had made things more bearable for Lily, since three year levels had departed Hogwarts for their Christmas break.

"So, how was detention?" Aurelia inquired, looking up from the book she was reading. The front cover of it read _Great Wizards of the Past. Strewn around her were numerous rolls of parchment, three quills, and a brand-new bottle of ink. _

"Awful," Lily moaned. "We were asked to dust all the furniture in the Dark Arts wing—the only part of the castle that's seldom used. There were practically two inches of dust on everything we cleaned…it was horrible. I think I've sneezed so much, it would still have been more than all the other sneezes I've had in my life combined. Gods, if James wasn't there—"

"Really? What exactly did your manly man do that made everything less of a hassle?" Aurelia teased, her blue eyes dancing with amusement.

"I…he—never mind about that, what are you going to wear to the ball?" Lily asked quickly, changing the subject. Her face was flushed, though something told Aurelia that it had nothing to do with dusting off a whole wing's worth of furniture in one day…

Aurelia shrugged. "I'm gonna wear that dress I bought in Hogsmeade…what about you? You're going to use the green one that I picked out for you, right?" 

Lily picked at a loose thread on her pillowcase. "I dunno. Maybe I should just skip the dumb ball…" 

Her blonde friend sat up, causing a few rolls of parchment to cascade off her bed and unravel themselves on the floor. "No way, Lily. Besides, James is definitely going, and I don't think he'd be too happy if his girl refused to show up and have a good time."

Lily shook her head. "Have a good time? Showing up in front of the rest of the school—well, the rest of the school minus the first to third years, anyway—would be like heading straight to the battlefield without bringing a gun. It's like, 'Here I am! Abuse me!'"

Aurelia sighed, and for a moment she looked like she was contemplating what to say—as if Lily's decision in going or not going to the ball depended on every word she uttered. "Look, they're _not going to harass you if you don't let them get to you," she finally said. "And you won't. Because anybody who insults you is just a loser who isn't worth being offended for."_

The anxiety on the redhead's face disappeared. "You think so?" she asked, lying back on her bed and looking more relaxed.

Aurelia smiled encouragingly. "I know so."

*****  

"He _what?_" Sirius exclaimed, sitting up on the bed.

Remus sighed. "I said I _have a feeling_ that James likes Lily," he said exasperatedly.

"I know what you said," Sirius shot back. "I was implying surprise."

"Well, your implications are hardly _perceptible," Remus retorted. "Anyway, I think Lily likes him too—"_

"She _what!_"

"Yeah, she—will you quit that? You sound like a gossipy schoolgirl," the werewolf admonished. Sirius immediately shut up.

"Anyway, as I was saying," Remus continued, giving Sirius a look, "it's not really important, just something I noticed. You don't have to get so excited over a would-be romance between Prongs and—"

"But it is! See, Prongs hasn't dated a girl in ages, and this'll be a perfect way for Lily to gain confidence—you know, like 'My bf's the biggest man on campus and you can't do anything to me'—that kinda stuff." Sirius grinned.

"Ookay…Sirius, I'm starting to worry about your mental health again…are you saying we're going to play matchmaker—"

"Why not?" Sirius interjected.

"—like a couple of girls? _They're the experts on that matter, not us. If you ask me, you should go to Aurelia for help with—"_

"I'm afraid that's not necessary," a voice said from the doorway. A _female _voice. Remus and Sirius whipped around.

"Why do I get the feeling that I won't be able to complete a sentence at this rate?" Remus muttered as Aurelia walked in.

Sirius jumped off his bed, pointing an accusing index finger at her. "Hey, you're a girl! What're you doing, trespassing in the boys' dormitory?"

Aurelia rolled her eyes. "Speak for yourself. You barge into the girls' dormitory all the time." 

Sirius put down his hand and grinned sheepishly, just as Aurelia muttered the word, "hypocrite." 

Remus stood up too. "So, what did you mean, 'I'm afraid that's not necessary'?" 

"Yeah! You're supposed to be sticking up for your friends' love lives, you know," Sirius chirped.

Aurelia stared at him, raising an eyebrow. Remus shook his head. "Ignore the guy. He's hit the lunatic pills one too many times."

Shrugging and watching the sour look on Sirius' face, Aurelia continued. "Guess they didn't tell you…they're already a couple. Well, in secret, anyway. I figured you knew that already, but obviously…"

"They're what!" Remus said incredulously. 

"Ha! Who's acting like a gossipy schoolgirl now?" Sirius said triumphantly. Yet again, Aurelia gave him a weirded-out look and turned to Remus for an explanation. 

"Never mind him," Remus sighed. "Are you sure they're a couple? Because James tells us everything, and he should've told us about _this." _

Aurelia sighed. "I wouldn't have known either if I hadn't run into them snogging in the dungeons the other day—"

_"Snogging?!" _Remus and Sirius chorused in slightly higher-pitched voices than their normal ones, both not caring anymore if they sounded like girls or not. 

Aurelia resisted the urge to laugh. Instead, she looked around the room, as if she was looking for someone who should be there but wasn't. "Where's Peter?" 

"In the library, slaving over a CMC research paper," Remus responded. 

"He doesn't know yet, then," Aurelia said.

"'Course not. If we didn't know about it until you told us, what more ol' Wormtail?" Sirius said. "What about you? Where's Lily?"

Aurelia shrugged. "Probably wherever James is right now," she answered with a sly smile.

Sirius grinned too. "Excellent. What say we crash their snog session?"

*****  

Lily walked down the less-used halls of Hogwarts, just trying to get away from her friends. Her friends. She still couldn't believe she actually had some, and now even her _mind was telling her that she did. _

She scowled, remembering why she was thinking about avoiding them in the first place. Why did Aurelia have to be so smart, anyway? Why couldn't she have been just a little bit more clueless, so that she couldn't read Lily's mind and actions? 

And why the hell did she have to run in on James and Lily when they first kissed?

She sighed, running a hand through her uncombed hair. After taking a shower due to all the dust that must've clung to her in her detention, she slipped quickly out of her dorm before Aurelia could bring up the subject of her and James again.

It wasn't that she didn't want to talk about being together with James, it was because she was still confused. How would she know what their status really was if they kept their relationship from everybody? _And I'm the one who told him to keep it a secret in the first place… Argh, I wonder if love really does turn your brain into complete mush. No wonder all the idiots around me kept complaining about how their love lives are driving them crazy… Heck, _I'm _driving myself crazy…_

Life was just so complicated. She sighed again, looking out at the blue lake that she could see through the windows. Tiny flecks of white could be seen dropping down from the sky, signaling how near Christmas was from today. Students were outside, strolling around and laughing, probably talking about caroling and pine trees and gingerbread men, whatever it was that Christmas was all about. 

She used to envy them because they had families and friends to celebrate the holidays with, and she hated them for that. She hated their sickeningly cheerful smiles, their excited voices discussing what presents they were going to give away and receive, their 'Christmas is a time of good cheer' garbage that she knew she believed in back when she was a kid, but couldn't care less for now. She remembered the question that kept ringing in her ears every time this season came up, even though she already knew the answer: _Why do they all look so damned happy? _

But maybe that was what she was missing all this time. Maybe it was all the small things, like Christmas shopping and laughing with your friends and trimming the Christmas tree, that were really important. It didn't necessarily mean that the little things had to do with your family, because maybe just knowing that there was somebody who cared—who _shared those little things with you—was enough. People who cared…like Aurelia. And Sirius, and Peter, and Remus. And James…_

She smiled without realizing it as an image of James floated into her mind. Yep, you didn't need your biological family to have something to celebrate about on Christmas. 

Lily caught her smiling reflection in the glass window and groaned. Yet another downside of love was turning people into love struck saps…

*****  

From another part of the school, James emerged from one of the prefect bathrooms, fully refreshed after the grueling detention that Professor McGonagall had assigned. 

Whenever he was alone, he tended to think about a lot of things. Today was no exception.

In the past, he had always occupied his mind with schoolwork, prefect duties, what pranks to play…simple, everyday things in life. Right now though, he was thinking of something else. Like this thing he had with Lily. 

People always wondered why James Potter, one of the most popular boys in school, refused to date any girl. Sirius had tried numerous times to hook him up with somebody, but he had always found a way to dodge it, and his best friend ended up benefiting from it by claiming the girl himself… 

He didn't want to get attached to girls because he knew that relationships required commitment. Sure, Sirius obviously lacked that particular requirement—given his status—and leaned on the dump-her-when-things-get-too-serious-and-move-on-to-the-next-lucky-girl option. Right. More like move on to the next _victim, James used to scoff at his best friend. But Sirius just shook it off, and told James that he shouldn't be so nicey-nice all the time, that there were certain exceptions to the never-hurt-a-girl rule. _

Unfortunately, James didn't hold the same beliefs as his friend. He always held on to the traditional principle of couples, which consisted of dating, then the start of something exclusive, and the last step being in a steady relationship and living happily ever after. That was the problem though. He _believed _in true love, but he didn't want to _commit_ himself to it. No, that would take all the fun out of life, if he let his world revolve around a girlfriend. Well, not exactly, but he knew that having a girlfriend meant that some sort of freedom would be taken away from him. 

But now, things had changed. He had always considered what kind of girl he would date even if he never did. He wanted someone who was unique, someone who didn't like him for his popularity, someone who loved him because he was, well, because he was _James. _

Lily was definitely that.

That was why he was forgetting all his personal rules of never falling for a girl. Maybe he did it because Lily wasn't one of those annoying groupies of his who worshipped the ground he walked on and constantly bugged him. Or maybe he fell for Lily because he was typical sensitive James, who always stood by a friend who was hurting. Who didn't _want to see his friends hurting._

One thing was for sure though. He knew it in his heart that he was in love with Lily. Why else would he throw away all his rules to be with her? 

What he was worried about was why Lily wanted to keep their relationship a secret. He had proven that he was ready to risk his reputation just to have a chance with her. Shouldn't she be doing the same, like pushing aside all her doubts and fears and breaking her status as an outcast?

That was the worst fear he had, to find out that Lily didn't feel as strongly about him as he did about her.

_But she needs time, _his brain argued. _You get off easy. You've built up confidence because you're popular, and you've always had friends behind you. Lily didn't have anybody before, and she couldn't feel confident with everybody looking down on her because she was an outcast. _

Starting to agree with his last thoughts, he took out the Marauder's Map out of habit. If he was going to have some alone time and sort out his thoughts, he had to go somewhere else. No need to scare younger students who watched him walking around in a zombie state. 

He squinted at three little dots that came closer and closer to the hall he was standing in. _Remus Lupin, Aurelia Walden, and Sirius Black.__ He didn't know what the three of them were up to, but he wasn't planning on sticking around to find out…_

Slipping into a secret passage on the map that led back to the Dark Arts wing, he muttered, "Mischief managed!" and shoved the map back in his pocket. He came out to a dark corridor and walked along it until he reached another secret passage. From past wanderings, he estimated that going a little bit more to the west would lead him to the south of the castle. It was a pretty secluded place, but it offered all the light that he needed. 

He was so busy with his thoughts that he didn't notice another person coming toward him, and he looked up and stopped just in time before the other student and he collided. 

"Oh, sorry…" the preoccupied assailant started to apologize, and she lifted her head. "James?" 

In spite of himself, James grinned at her. He really couldn't help it. Just seeing her made him happy. Except…she wasn't smiling. Lily definitely looked anxious about something.

"Are you okay?" he asked, knowing that sometimes she lapsed back into depressing thoughts of when she was still an outcast. 

"Yeah, I'm fine," Lily murmured. "Just wandering around with a head full of thoughts."

James smiled again. They were really connected, he was sure of it now. "Well then, you'd better watch your step or that head full of thoughts will end up rolling on the floor if you're not paying attention." 

She didn't crack a smile at that. Something must be really bothering her. He knew that she always smiled when he was around, and that made him feel special, like he was the only one who could bring that kind of happiness to her. "Are you sure you're okay?" he repeated.

Lily nodded. "I am, really," she assured. "I'm just trying to forget these confusing thoughts, but it's not working." She frowned. 

"I have the perfect remedy for that," James told her, and without warning he pressed her against the wall and touched his lips to hers. Actually it _did _work, because right then and there he felt all his worries erasing themselves from his mind. He heard Lily sigh into the kiss, and obviously she was feeling like all her confusion was melting away too with the way she kissed him back passionately. 

He pulled back for a while to catch his breath and gave her a lazy smile. "Feel better now?" he asked.

"Yes," Lily replied, blushing. "I…I just decided on something. I don't care what anybody thinks anymore…about-about us. They can say what they want. I just want us to be together."

James' eyes lit up. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? "You mean, you're going to fight?" 

Lily smiled, and James remembered for the first time how he hadn't seen her do that in days. "Not necessarily. I'm just going to tell them that if they have a problem about us being together, then they can have a hex shoved in the face." 

"You don't call that fighting?" James teased, running a hand down her arm. He could feel her shivering beneath her black robes. 

"No. I call it putting them in their place," Lily countered confidently. 

James shook his head. "You've really changed, Lily," he said softly.

"Yeah? Well, I keep telling myself that too." Lily closed her eyes for a moment as if she was thinking about something. 

He focused on her long lashes and her heavy, peaceful breathing. Somehow he found that incredibly alluring at the moment. He leaned in, ready to initiate another kiss, when she suddenly opened her eyes and whirled him around, so that _he _was the one who was pinned against a wall. She pressed her soft lips against his before he could react, kissing him with more aggression than in the last. 

James, not one to be outdone, kissed her back with equal fervor, relishing the feeling of her hand running through his unruly black hair. He had to admit that she was good at this. _Very good.  _

He was just starting to really enjoy the feel of the kiss when suddenly something heavy slammed into his back, as if the wall was moving abruptly forward. Lily broke away and started to fall because of the impact, and she jumped out of the way just in time to see three people stumbling out of the open space that should have been a wall. The three piled themselves on top of James. 

From the middle of the pile a muffled voice that sounded vaguely like Sirius' proclaimed, "I _knew _I heard wet, kissy noises from the other side!"

"What the hell? Get off me!" James demanded from the bottom of the heap. "Get off!"

"_This_ is what you dragged me out of the library for?" Peter complained. He was in between Sirius and James. 

Remus quickly stood up, causing Sirius to fall over to the floor on his side. 

"OW!!!" Sirius yelped in protest. In the space where the wall should have been, somebody giggled and stepped out. 

"Hello, Aurelia," Lily said dryly, watching the four (three if you discount Remus) marauders struggling to stand up. 

"Hey," Aurelia greeted, still chuckling. She glanced at the marauders. "You guys are some matchmakers."

*****  

**AN - ***highlights content of chappie 11 and clicks on Word Count in Tools* Wow! 7, 252 words… This is my longest chapter ever. Now the problem is deciding whether the content of it is relevant…

I hope that was gratifying, 'cause I'm trying to make up for being super late… and to think, I started summer vacation more than ten days ago. I'm such a slacker… Sorry sorry sorry…

And I'm still lacking ideas. I'm thinking about ending this story with the next chapter… I still have to do a damn slash fic for my deranged sister. -_- Can't tell when I'll post it though, I have to go back to school a couple of days for Recognition Day practices. Although I don't know when they told me I was going to have an OS award whether it mean Outstanding Student or Overly Stupid. Somehow I feel like the latter is more appropriate, given my tendency to lapse from rational thought most of the time… Dear me, my brother's bigheadedness syndrome must be contagious… Anybody got an anti-rapid-ego-inflation pill?


	12. When She Smiles

**Out of Her Shell**

**By Dimantrien**

**A/N – **This is the last chapter. Sorry for those who wanted a couple more. Yes, I'm late, and yes, I'm a very lazy, very lackadaisical author right now with no ideas. I've been sick, and I've barely survived without Internet for more than two weeks. If it's any consolation to you guys, look at the scroll bar to the right of the screen! Doesn't that little rectangular thing (forgot what it's called) look so _thin_? 

**Chapter 12: When She Smiles **

An air of excitement was evident all throughout Hogwarts Castle on the morning of Christmas Eve, as the ball was only hours away. Everybody was anticipating it, fussing over what to wear (the girls, anyway), asking out last-minute dates, etc, etc, etc. Everybody. 

Even Lily.

The time was 4: 45, and the ball was to start at nine o'clock. It seemed as if there was a fire going on, with girls rushing all throughout the corridors and squealing at each other. Most guys were outside, no doubt to avoid the stampede of frenzied dance-happy females in the castle. Of course, not _all_ girls were that manic…

The door to the boys' dormitory swung open, admitting Lily and Aurelia. 

"Why hello, ladies. So nice of you to stop by," Sirius said, lifting his head from the potion he was brewing at the base of his bed.

"Isn't it a little too early for holiday homework, Sirius? I mean, I know you just _love schoolwork but there's no need to be so attached," Lily commented in reply sardonically._

"Oh so dedicated," Aurelia deadpanned. The marauders, excluding Sirius, laughed.

Sirius stood up. "For your information, which you seem to be lacking in, I'm in the process of completing the ultimate infusion of physically caused human discomfitures, all amalgamated into something so potent, a single drop will suffice in activating its…power," he retorted defiantly, pouring his "infusion" into several separate tiny glass vials that could be easily concealed inside dress robes. 

"Say that in English," James quipped. Aurelia, Lily and Remus were looking at Sirius blankly; Peter was scratching his head.

"You dolts, this baby'll make whoever victim I choose burp, sneeze and acquire a runny nose, fart, develop body odor, sprout warts and pimples and blahblahblah…"

"Fascinating," Remus said in a bored tone.

"More like disgusting," Lily intoned, rolling her eyes.

"…all at the same time," Sirius finished. His eyes gleamed, and he had the prankster-in-hyper-mode vibe surrounding him. 

"That's great, Sirius, but are you sure it'll work?" James asked. He was never against any of his best friend's pranks (unless it was intended to be pulled on _him), and always played the role of rational thought whenever Sirius was getting too maniacal to think straight._

"Would you like me to test it on you?" Sirius inquired innocently, holding up one of the vials and unscrewing the cork. 

"No thanks," James said quickly. Then a grin spread on his face. "Though I'm sure a certain large-nosed, slimy-haired git would be perfect for the job," he added. 

Sirius mirrored the expression on his best friend's face. "Ah, yes. Our ever-loyal guinea pig…Severus." 

"Before you go on with the Snape bashing, maybe you'd like to ask Lily and Aurelia what they're doing here?" Peter piped up, indicating the two girls.

"We're just trying to escape from the bimbos in our dorm who keep screaming at each other and arguing over trivial things like the hair dryer and the perfect shade of lipstick," Lily promptly supplied the answer. 

"Technically, the hair dryer in question _isn't_ a trivial matter, as it's _mine_, and said bimbos are probably ripping it apart because they've become so ditzy that they conveniently forgot to add it in their beauty item shopping list, which is probably overflowing with things such as _Sweet Seduction _perfume and glittery eye shadow," Aurelia added matter-of-factly. "I can't do anything about it, though. If there's one thing you shouldn't do to prissy bitches on a fashion rush, it's hexing them just when they o-so-perfected their ensembles already." 

Lily shrugged. "You probably should have. Turning up to the ball with Medusa hair would be better than turning up to the ball looking like a circus clown." 

Aurelia smiled sweetly. "Well, I do have a heart, and if I had just spent about half a can of hairspray and a million bobby pins to do up my hair, I wouldn't want anybody to mess it up either." 

"How sensitive and empathic of you," Lily remarked in a sarcastic tone. "Though I assure you that once you do reach the same level of fashion-and-beauty obsession as them, I'll make sure to be a good friend and put curses on all your makeup." 

"Gee thanks." Aurelia paused. "Speaking of makeup, I better check if mine are still where they should be, or more importantly, in the same amount as they last were after I last used them… Later, guys." She stood up to leave at the same time as Lily. 

"I should go too," Lily sighed. "Hopefully Pandora and her friends would now be in the process of rushing to other girls' rooms and trading and borrowing jewelry and stuff..." She quickly pecked James on the cheek and followed at Aurelia's heel out the door. "See you at the dance," she called before shutting the door behind her. 

Sirius carefully put the vials in the hidden pocket of his dress robes, glancing momentarily at James who had a wide grin on his face. "The look of a person in love," he said with a smirk, causing Remus and Peter to snigger. 

James snapped out of whatever Lily daydream he'd been having and scowled. "Laugh if you want, but as far as I know, you're the ones without a date to the ball." 

Sirius dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. "No girl could resist an offer to be the date of the great Sirius Black, no matter how late I ask," he answered confidently. 

"I already have a date," Remus said with a good-natured smile. 

"I don't," Peter said miserably. 

"Fine, Pete doesn't have the right to laugh 'cause he doesn't have a date yet, then," James amended. 

Remus looked at the clock. Ten past four. He sighed. "So, what do you guys want to do to kill the time?" 

Sirius held up the concoction he made that his friends had apparently forgotten. "What else?"

*****  

There was no dinner prepared at the Great Hall before the ball, so by fifteen minutes to nine o'clock, there were already people milling around in the entrance hall with their partners, impatiently waiting for the doors to open. Of course, delayed food was not a problem to the marauders, as they had easy access to the kitchens, and had gone there beforehand to "test if all the food is okay," as Sirius explained to the house-elves (They didn't get to pull their prank because McGonagall, who could read the mischievous looks on their faces, threatened them not to cause any trouble that day or they'd be banned from the ball). 

The marauders (especially Sirius) grudgingly obeyed her, but due to their trip to the kitchens where Sirius ate his way through the dinner menu, they were forced to drag him all the way back to Gryffindor Tower and had just about ten minutes to prepare for the dance. They pulled on their dress robes, put on their shoes, and combed their hair…and presto! Finished with dressing up in the span of sixty seconds. 

For girls, though, preparing for a ball was a different matter… 

Lily was pleased to see that her prediction had been right; her three other dorm mates had scurried off to…wherever they went. She didn't really care, as long as they were out of the dorm. And out of her line of vision. 

Even though she was anticipating the dance (because of the fact that this was the first time she was going to actually show up in one), she couldn't see why other girls were so fussy about dressing up. Aurelia and Lily had just lounged around inside the dorm until an hour and thirty minutes before the dance. She showered, put on her clothes and shoes, and brushed her hair. That was it. Now all she had to do was wait for Aurelia to get out of the bathroom herself and prepare.

After what seemed like forever to Lily (or twenty minutes, whichever you prefer), Aurelia finally stepped out of the bathroom, already donned with a bright blue gown that matched her eyes perfectly. She had magically dried her hair and pulled it back in a neat French braid. For jewelry, a pair of sapphire earrings hung from her earlobes, and a delicate silver bracelet was on her right wrist. For a moment, Lily's first impression of her was a fairytale princess. 

Aurelia walked over to her bed and pulled out shoes from under it. "Just give me a second for a touch-up, Lil, and I'll be ready to—" She stopped short when she saw Lily.

"What?" Lily said blankly when her friend gaped at her.

"Lily! What are you doing, just sitting there?" Aurelia exclaimed, as if it was a crime for Lily to just sit on her bed waiting for her.

Lily frowned. "Waiting for you so that we could go down to the Great Hall," she responded. "Why—?"

Aurelia hurried over to Lily barefoot, her shoes temporarily forgotten. "But you're not ready! Your hair's not made up, you don't have any makeup on, and you're supposed to wear that green dress I picked out for you—"

"But that dress has spaghetti straps, and it's kinda tight around the torso," Lily protested as Aurelia lifted the said dress from her trunk. 

Without answering, Aurelia pushed her into the bathroom (there just had to be certain disadvantages of having the bed nearest the bathroom, Lily thought) and handed her the dress, then shut the door. "Don't come out until you put it on!" her muffled voice said through two-inch-thick plywood. 

Lily sighed and, seeing that she had no other choice, changed into the gown that Aurelia insisted she wear. She wasn't used to wearing things like this, since her usual attire other than her school uniform were loose-fitting shirts, comfy jeans and sneakers. She had never worn anything even slightly skimpy in her whole life. 

She tried to turn the doorknob. It didn't budge.

"_Aurelia!__ I'm done!" the redhead yelled. A moment later there was a click and Aurelia flung the door open. She stared at Lily. Somehow that look felt all too familiar. "What now?" Lily asked in annoyance._

Aurelia blinked, as if just realizing that she was gawking at her friend. "See, I told you! You look gorgeous! Come here, in front of the mirror." She dragged Lily, who didn't protest. What was the use? She'd just be wasting energy.

"There!" She positioned Lily in front of the mirror. "Don't you think you look better in this dress?"

Lily shrugged. "I still feel like the same old me, except for the fact that this thing is…well…more _daring than my standards," she answered grudgingly. _

"Aw, come on. James'll drool when he sees you in that. Now let's do your hair." Aurelia sat Lily down in front of her dresser and started rummaging through the clutter of makeup and nail polish for a brush. 

"Interesting mental picture," Lily commented dryly, and Aurelia laughed. As the brush smoothed down her red tresses, she noticed that it was moving on its own accord while Aurelia opened her drawer and extracted a case of hairpins. Then she grabbed the brush again and pulled back Lily's hair as she would in a ponytail.

"What time is it, Lily?" Aurelia asked while fixing up the red locks. 

Lily looked at her watch. "8: 30. We've got plenty of time."

"No, we don't," Aurelia corrected. "I still have to do your makeup, heck; I still have to do _my makeup…"_

"Oh, you don't need to put any makeup on me—" Lily started to jump in.

"No can do, Lily," Aurelia said firmly. She finished putting in the million (or so Lily thought) hairpins into Lily's hair. Then she scanned her dresser yet again for a can of hairspray, and, finding none, ran across the room to her trunk. 

Lily checked her reflection in the mirror and saw that Aurelia had done her hair into a twist that made it stick out in all directions at the back of her head. Aurelia knew her hairdos though. In every which way, it still looked elegant. 

Aurelia's reflection appeared beside her, holding a tube of hair gel in one hand and a tin can in the other. She examined the tin can. "Wait…if you're using the gel then you don't need this stuff…" She tossed the can onto her dresser and proceeded to lathering huge amounts of hair gel into Lily's hair. 

"Aurelia! With all that gel you're putting into my hair, those locks will feel like steel needles when I lay my head down later to go to sleep," Lily said exasperatedly. 

"No, no, it won't," Aurelia reassured. "Do you have any jewelry?"

Lily shrugged, as she couldn't shake her head since Aurelia was still busy with it. "Never had a reason to keep or buy any," she replied simply. 

"Open the drawer and get the glass box," Aurelia ordered. Lily obeyed. "See those emerald earrings? Put them on."

Lily looked at her friend's reflection blankly. "My ears aren't pierced," she said.

Aurelia dropped her hands in mid-gel. "_What?_"

"I stopped wearing earrings a long time ago," Lily explained. "So I guess the holes closed because it's been such a long time."

Aurelia didn't say anything for a moment. Then, "A minor setback. I know just what to do," she announced, picking up her wand from the top of the dresser. _"Perforio!"_

"What are you going to—OW!!!!!" Lily yelped as she felt a sudden pain in her earlobes, as if a pair of particularly large red ants had decided to taste them. She looked into the mirror and noticed that they were all red, and even redder were the single dots in the center of each. "How did you—no, wait a minute. _Why did you do that?!" _

Aurelia looked sheepish. "Uh, I'll answer your first question first..." She held up two fine pieces of metal, like needles except there was no hole. "And, well… you _need to have your ears pierced! The pain will go away in a few minutes…"_

Lily sighed and took out her own wand, tapping her earlobes and making the redness (and the pain) disappear. "Right," was all she said, albeit a bit sardonically. "Just warn me if you ever get the urge to pierce body parts again." 

Aurelia nodded and breathed a sigh of relief (because Lily didn't blow up at her acting-before-thinking stunt). "I really am sorry. But you gotta admit…magic really makes things easier, huh? Try them on," she urged. 

Lily reluctantly put on the emerald earrings. What followed was what seemed like a very, _very long makeover for her as Aurelia applied all sorts of stuff on her face that she never knew existed before. The amount of time consumed was, of course, doubled because Aurelia had to make herself up too. _Finally, _when both girls were all ready to go…_

"Amazing. After you finished with all those…things you put on my face, I don't even slightly resemble a clown," Lily commented after checking the mirror one last time. It occurred to her that in this day she had looked at a mirror to consult her appearance so often that the number of times was greater than the rest of the instances in her whole life combined. Usually, Lily made herself look presentable, but she didn't see the logic of having to stare at her reflection constantly because she knew that she looked okay. 

"No matter how many layers of makeup I put on you, it'd still be less than half of how much the ditzes in this school wear on _their_ faces," Aurelia said matter-of-factly. By the time they got down to the common room, it was three minutes to nine. 

*****  

The common room was completely deserted except for two people who were playing wizard chess by the fire. As soon as Aurelia appeared in front of the girls' staircase, they stood up and looked at her. 

"Hey Aurelia," James greeted, lifting his chin slightly in acknowledgement. He was wearing silvery dress robes and was carrying a small Christmas-wrapped box in one hand. 

Remus, who was behind James, smiled at Aurelia. "You look nice," he remarked. He walked past James and offered his arm to Aurelia, who took it. Her nails were painted pale blue. 

James raised his eyebrows. "Remus is your date?" 

"Yeah. Hey, there's Lily now," she said, gesturing at the staircase. She smirked at the looks that crossed the two guys' faces as their eyes landed on Lily. 

James spoke first. "Wow, Lily, you look…" Was _drop-dead gorgeous_ too extravagant? "…stunning," he finally said. Lily blushed but smiled at the compliment. 

"I'm not really," she mumbled modestly as she walked toward them.

"No way. Seriously, Lil, you look beautiful. Wait'll all the guys in the Hall see you; they'll regret they ever mocked you at some point in their miserable jerk lives…" Remus smiled at her encouragingly, and Lily relaxed, looking more confident. 

"Thanks, Remus," she said quietly. 

"Well then," James said brightly, taking Lily by the hand. "Let's go!" 

Once they reached it, they saw that the Great Hall was packed with students in all corners, and there was a big space in the middle of the hall that served as the dance floor. It was decorated just like any other Christmas in Hogwarts before: the twelve towering Christmas trees that held everything imaginable and more, yards and yards of green garlands lining the walls, icicles hanging in certain corners, and bewitched snowflakes (that fell and disappeared before coming into contact with any solid object) falling from the enchanted ceiling. 

It would have been hard for them to find a table if Sirius and Peter hadn't gotten earlier than them. "Over here, you guys!" Sirius yelled so loudly that half the Hall turned to look. Every person's gaze was fixed on the four fashionably late sixth year Gryffindors walking into the Hall, and they all fell silent and stared as Lily and James passed. Different people had different reactions. Countless girls' jaws fell open in shock; the nicer students (like the Hufflepuffs and some Gryffindors) looked just as surprised but murmured compliments to the former school outcast; some guys had a completely glassy look in their eyes; and some, which consisted of the Snob Squad and certain Slytherins, tried to mask their shock at Lily's complete one-eighty in the looks and social department by jeering at her and throwing their usual insults.

But, simply in general, everyone was frozen with disbelief. 

Lily avoided everyone's eyes until they reached the table that Sirius had saved, which seated eight. Sirius' date, Jessica McDougal, was just as speechless as the rest of the students, while Peter's last-minute partner, a Hufflepuff named Patricia Abbot, smiled at Lily. 

"Took you guys long enough," Sirius said, oblivious to the silence that had set over the Great Hall at his friends' arrival. "The professors and Dumbledore aren't here yet, probably planning strategies on how to act if a riot breaks out during the dance—"

His theory was interrupted by the teachers themselves, who stepped into the Great Hall in a line. All of them were rather taken aback by the lack of student chatter. They proceeded to the High Table, which at any occasion still stayed put where it was, and then Dumbledore spoke.

"I deem that it is no longer necessary to welcome you all to this gathering, as you have all arrived quite promptly, even earlier than your teachers," the Headmaster started, the ever-present twinkle in his eyes never fading. "Excellent. I do, however, congratulate you all for behaving oddly well before the ball starts…oddly…but I shall not pry. Very well then, let us not dwell on an old man's babble! Let the festivities begin!" He clapped his hands twice, and hundreds of tiny fairies flew into the room, forming a glowing "A Merry Magical Christmas to One and All" in the air. The sudden display started up a round of conversation once again to the Hall, and by the time the food appeared on everyone's plates, the combined voices of the students was as loud as it was before Lily had set foot into the room. 

"Oh yeah…why was everybody so quiet before Dumbledore and the others went in?" Sirius asked, clueless. Remus shook his head.

"Never mind, Sirius, wasn't important…" And Lily gave him a rare smile of gratitude at that. 

Nothing out of the ordinary (at least, for a wizarding Yule ball) happened during dinner, unless you counted Sirius breaking his record on how many grapes he could stuff into his mouth without choking, and the latter was the reason for all the people present in the same table to lose their appetites halfway through dessert and for Sirius' date to leave huffily at his atrocious table etiquette…or lack thereof. By the time the Head Boy and Girl started the dance following the feast in the middle of the Hall, all the food had disappeared from the plates, Sirius had found a new date, and several popular girls were making their way to the marauders' table where Lily and James were still sitting (all their friends had already left for the dance floor, and James was currently trying to persuade Lily to join them). 

"Come on, Lily, there's a whole lot of people out there, and they're all too busy dancing with their dates to even think of insulting you. I assure you that they won't, judging from the stunned looks on their faces when you entered the Hall, and if they did let a snide comment pass then I'll make sure that they get a good kick in the—"

"But what if they were girls, James?" a new voice drawled, and the two of them looked up to see Narcissa Leigh of Slytherin House sneering at Lily in an I'm-all-powerful-and-you're-just-the-dirt-under-my-feet kind of way. She was, as was expected of a popular girl, very pretty, but her attitude negatively made up for that. She had, for a long time, had her eye on James, and was most probably here to publicly humiliate Lily. "You wouldn't attack a girl, now, would you?" 

"Of course not," James said in a steely voice, ignoring her flirtatious smile, "not unless they were Slytherins," he finished with disgust. 

Narcissa raised an eyebrow but didn't do anything that would show that she was offended; rather, she flipped her hair back and smiled smugly. "Though I'm sure that you have some exceptions. But let's not talk about such unpleasant things. Surely you should be dancing right now? How odd for the most popular guy in school…but quite expected, seeing who your…" she trailed off, setting her gaze on Lily, her smirk widening.

Lily stared back at her defiantly, not wanting to give this over-made-up bitch of a "popular princess" the satisfaction of thinking that the insults were getting to her. Her experience as an outcast had made her develop a sharp tongue, and her insults were as stinging as any, if not more. She could handle a spoiled Slytherin who didn't get her way. 

"It seems as if your…er…_date _isn't up to moving around much," she continued patronizingly, though Lily could distinctly hear her mutter "probably an idiot on the dance floor, no doubt" under her breath. "So why waste the evening parking your butt on the seat when you could be having the time of your life dancing with finer, more _mature girls? Instead of unsociable, bitter outca—"_

"I don't think so," James interrupted coldly, standing up. "Now, why don't you go back to Lucius Malfoy? You know, your _date_? Or maybe, _he's the one who left you alone, seeing as you flirt with every guy you see—"_

"James, I can handle this," Lily suddenly said, standing up as well and putting a hand on his shoulder. Something different was in her green eyes now, something that very much resembled the flicker of fear and depression that they had in them back before she had any friends. Then, as quickly as James had seen it, they changed, hardening with a glimmer of pure defiance and bravery. 

Narcissa sneered at her, apparently not intimidated in the slightest. "So. The pitiful social outcast tries to 'change for the better' by tailing after the popular kids. Are you so tired of your title as the invisible exile that you want to change to a wrong-side-of-the-tracks rebel?"

Lily gave her a piercing stare, unfazed. "Nobody in this school has the right to tell another person who they should or shouldn't be," she answered coolly. "Has that every occurred to you before? Or has all the popularity gone into your head that you start having delusions of being above everybody else because of your so-called _social elitism?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm._

But Narcissa just laughed, a high-pitched, female-villain sort of laugh. "First of all, Evans, _I _should be asking you the questions. What would _you _know about social elitism, seeing as you spent the past six years of your life hiding away from other people for some weird and abnormal reason? Second, it's you who doesn't know a thing about popularity. It's not about kowtowing at other well-known people's feet, hopelessly believing that clinging to them will bring you some popularity of your own. It's about—"

"About what? Treating all the other people around you like dirt, flirting every second you have to spare, wearing excessive makeup and extremely short skirts so often that you'll look like a slut?" Lily shot back. By this time, several couples had stopped dancing and gathered around the two to see what was going on. Some of them glanced at Narcissa's outfit, and, as Lily had implied, the bright red material barely covered her butt. 

For the first time, Narcissa's expression cracked from its smugness and she flinched. But, almost imperceptibly, it changed into a look of anger, and everyone watching saw her taking out her wand. "Don't tell me what I do or don't know, Evans," she yelled, losing composure. Her pretty face flushed with rage. "I'll give you a piece of my mind—"

Lily crossed her arms, but not before taking her own wand out as well. "Don't bother. With that pea-sized brain of yours, you can't spare any," she interjected. The onlookers snickered. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Aurelia smirking and looking like she was trying to restrain herself from cheering Lily on out loud.

"H-how—how _dare you…" Narcissa seethed, unable to retort properly as she saw red. _

"Nice comeback," Lily remarked sardonically. "I thought popular girls were required to perfect the art of intimidating others and shutting them down whenever they stood up to them. Or maybe you didn't master it yet, because some people think that a Slytherin isn't worth to be worshipped by them…" Again, she looked around as Narcissa tried to find her own voice, surveying the crowd of watchers. Strangely, she didn't feel as nervous as she had at the beginning of the confrontation.

James stood next to Aurelia with an amused smile on his face; just then, Lily noticed that they too were holding their wands in case Narcissa decided to get vicious. As Lily continued to stare Narcissa down, she could see the girls at her side clutching their wands as well. It suddenly occurred to her that Aurelia was alone. Where was Remus?

Her question was answered as she looked off to the side of their table, where Sirius was bending over a goblet with Remus shaking his head at him. Remus caught her eye and grinned before joining their friends among the circle of spectators. Sirius followed him, carrying the goblet, though he gave Lily a wink before strolling away. 

Finally, Narcissa appeared like she could control her temper, but she didn't look so cocky now that Lily was answering back. "You have some nerve, for an outcast. Are you so clueless about the social world that your ignorance is starting to turn you into an idiot?" She flipped her hair over her shoulder again. "Don't even think that you're going to get any person's favors here. I wouldn't doubt it. After all, you're just a dirty little Mudblood," she spat harshly. 

As unpopular as Lily was, most people around them glowered angrily at Narcissa, muttering under their breath but not having the guts to stand up to her. James and Sirius, though, weren't classified as "most people." As all Slytherins within hearing range broke into malevolent sneers at Lily, they started to step forward with their wands out, glaring spitefully at Narcissa.

"Don't," Lily warned them, turning her head slightly in the professors' direction. In the midst of the other students who were enjoying the dance, they hadn't noticed that there was a fight going on. She looked back at Narcissa. "Typical of you to use my lineage to judge me as an unworthy person. I guess you're so shallow and narrow-minded already that you resort to using an excuse like that. Why would you need an excuse, anyway? What's the matter, Leigh? Afraid somebody's going to snatch your popularity from you? Do you feel threatened by those you consider the 'lesser people' now?"

Some students were starting to nod encouragingly at Lily; some others, adapting the same disbelieving look they had on their faces when she had first entered the Hall. It was clear why they were shocked, though. Apparently, nobody had ever stood up to Narcissa Leigh and her friends, and here was a former outcast, proving stronger than any of them by having the courage to answer back to the girl with more power than her. This event certainly changed their minds about Lily.

The look on Narcissa's face told everyone within sight that she was through spewing catty retorts to Lily; it was a glare of pure hatred and malice. Without checking if any teachers were looking her way or not, she pointed her wand at Lily, shaking with fury, and screeched, _"Mauspovian!" _A jet of light issued from her wand and shot straight at Lily, who quickly deflected the spell with a Shield Charm. Though she was fast enough to put it up in time not to be hit, the force of the curse made her stagger back a few paces right into Sirius. 

Shield Charms were appropriate in keeping minor hexes from hitting the conjurer, but didn't stop the curse from attacking someone else. The curse rebounded from Lily's shield, and like refracted light from a prism, shot back into Narcissa's direction. She jumped out of the way in time, and one of her friends behind her got hit instead. Weird purple spots popped up all over her face and throat, where the hex hit her, and she cried out to her friends, too panicky to perform a countercurse. 

But Narcissa didn't bother looking back to see if any of her friends got caught in the crossfire; she straightened as soon as the curse was out of the way and pointed her wand at Lily again in the stance of one going to do a duel. Lily, who wanted to retaliate with a curse, but not stupid enough to do so because there were teachers around, instinctively swiped the goblet from Sirius' hands and threw its contents in Narcissa's face.

"Lily! Don't, that's… Never mind…" Sirius mumbled. "She's a Slytherin anyway." 

Narcissa sputtered; the goblet had contained pumpkin juice and the sticky liquid ran down her throat and stained the top of her red robes. As she tried to perform the right spell to make it disappear, she gave a humongous belch that was heard throughout the Hall. Those who were dancing, or watching, or just sitting in the tables chatting, turned to see who did it—in fact, the whole Great Hall looked in their direction, including the teachers and Dumbledore. Narcissa, who looked utterly shocked (not to mention embarrassed), covered her mouth with both hands, looking sick. Something started to sprout unnaturally onto her palms, and she screamed, tearing them away and gaping at them in horror. Brown, hairy spots were popping out on them, spots that looked horribly like…

"Warts! Eurgh, Narcissa…" one of her friends said disgustedly, stepping away as Narcissa's silky hair went limp before their very eyes. Then she started coughing and sneezing alternately, and unstoppably, so she was more than preoccupied and couldn't wipe her suddenly runny nose… 

Most of the other students were too stunned to move—too stunned, indeed, to even react at all (except to look shocked). Sirius, unlike them, was rolling around on the Great Hall floor in fits of laughter. Aurelia snickered, unable to stop herself; Peter looked bewildered; Remus' face was torn between amusement and pity for Narcissa, even though she was a Slytherin. James wasn't gawping at Narcissa, he went to Lily's side immediately. Lily was staring at the girl she threw Sirius' gobletful of…whatever its mysterious contents were…she too appeared shocked, but still, her eyes gleamed with silent triumph. She waved her wand and made the goblet soar back to their table.

This motion seemed to trigger the movement of everyone's mouths; slowly, the Gryffindors started murmuring to one another, then the other students joined in, whispering and talking in hushed tones as Narcissa's appearance and condition grew worse (her smooth face now looked like she had sprouted acne in barely a second ((which she probably had)); she seemed to be suffering under an assortment of different common sicknesses, and she was still belching loudly). On top of that, she appeared on the verge of tears. 

Some students who hated the Slytherins and despised Narcissa no matter how powerful she was socially, said harsh words out loud, but not loud enough for teachers to hear. Speaking of teachers, they were fighting their way through the motionless mob that still didn't move an inch. 

"Really, stop gaping and move along now, the dance isn't over… Come on, MOVE!" Professor McGonagall barked at some particularly dazed-looking fourth years that were rooted to the spot. They jumped at her stern voice and quickly scurried out of her (and the other teachers') way. 

"_What is going on here?" Professor Witzgromeneirre, the Slytherin Head of House, demanded as soon as she reached Lily and Narcissa. _

"Leigh threw a curse at me, Professor," Lily started to explain, pointing at Narcissa's friend, who had purple spots covered all over her. 

Professor Witzgromeneirre sneered. "Really? How strange… are you implying that Miss Leigh has poor aim and sight and mistakenly hit one of her own friends instead? Or is this a poor attempt at a lie to cover up the fact that _you hurled a curse at __her?"_

"Kathleen!" Professor McGonagall admonished, glaring at her. "You saw it for yourself, Miss Leigh threw a curse at Miss Evans—"

"She was probably provoked!" Witzgromeneirre argued. "She is in my House, and I assure you that she will not act poorly for no reason!" 

The two Heads of Houses continued to quarrel, each not willing to admit that their student could behave so coarsely. The students were so engrossed in this rare display of _teachers squabbling, very much unlike their usual calm, reserved selves, that they didn't notice Lily approaching Narcissa cautiously. All of Narcissa's friends abandoned her or had backed away once the…thing in the goblet took effect. _

Lily stretched out her hand to help her. "Come on, let's get you to the hospital wing," she said softly, laying a hand on Narcissa's arm.

"Don't—*cough*—touch me!" Narcissa spat, though Lily was amazed that she could still talk. There were tears in her eyes.

Lily took her hand back, but strangely, she felt no hatred for Narcissa, even if she had tormented Lily for the past few days. All she felt was pity and guilt, as if she were the one who had done something wrong… "You're not going to get better if you just stand there. I'll take you to the hospital wing," she said quietly.

Narcissa struggled to look dignified, though it must be hard from her present position. "I do not—*cough*—_need your help, nor your pity. You're just a…AH CHOO! …a nasty, primeval outcast—" She belched again, and weird, smelly green bubbles emitted from her mouth. People near her shrank even farther away. _

"Lily, if she doesn't want to…" James trailed off quietly as Lily continued to stare at Narcissa. 

"I'm not going to stoop to her level," Lily said, her eyes still fixed on her enemy. "I'm taking her to the hospital wing even if she—or her friends, for that matter—doesn't want to." She strode forward and took Narcissa firmly by the upper arm, which seemed to be the only part of Narcissa's skin not covered with weird boils, warts, and other abnormal skin growths. This time, Narcissa didn't protest, and just let Lily drag her out of the Great Hall. Some watched them leave, the others' eyes were still glued to the professors' argument. None of those watching the latter seemed to have noticed that the subjects of the fight were exiting the Hall. By the time they realized this, the two girls had probably already reached the hospital wing. 

"Now, where have those girls disappear to?" Professor McGonagall huffed.

"This is all your fault, Minerva, if you hadn't stopped yapping about student rivalry, then you would have saved precious time and just told off that delinquent Gryffindor of yours—"

"Delinquent?!" McGonagall cried. "Lily Evans is one of the best students in this school and is a respected prefect, and you call her a delinquent! It's _your _student, Professor Witzgromeneirre, who talks back at her professors and struts around the castle like she owns the place!" 

_"How dare you say that about an honorable Slytherin student!" _Witzgromeneirre screeched. "You—"

"I'm afraid, my dear professors, that we need to get back to the subject at hand, and set aside our unabashed opinions on disciplinary ethics," Dumbledore said abruptly. His eyes twinkled merrily, as if he too had stood back and enjoyed their catfight. 

Professor Witzgromeneirre stood stiffly. "Yes, where have they gone? I suppose Evans ran out to avoid punishment—" 

_"She is a prefect, Kathleen!_ She understands the need to make up for the wrongs she does, and she rarely has any—"

"Ladies, please!" Dumbledore said reprovingly in a more stern tone. "The girls…"

"Yes, yes. Black, get up from there, it's very unbecoming. Where have Miss Evans and Miss Leigh gone?" Professor McGonagall asked. 

Sirius stood up straight as a few students laughed at McGonagall's remark. "See, Professor, they went out to continue their duel somewhere else, so as not to disturb the other students," he deadpanned with a straight face. 

Professor Flitwick shook his head disappointedly. "And I wanted to congratulate Miss Evans for that excellent Shield Charm she performed…"

Witzgromeneirre exploded at Sirius' answer. "THEY DID?! I'm telling you, Minerva, that Evans should be suspended—"

"HOW many times must I tell you that Lily Evans will never attack another student?!" Professor McGonagall retorted.

They still argued as they walked out of the Great Hall, ignoring Sirius' shouts of "Hey! I was just kidding…kidding! Are you listening to me?"

Dumbledore put a hand on Sirius' shoulder, which immediately halted his antics. The old Headmaster smiled at him. "Sometimes, it is wise to just stand back when two people are arguing. After all, it is a ladies' fight."

*****  

The dance carried on after the public spectacle, and the students did so as if they hadn't just witnessed something big that would keep them gossiping until the end of the school year. It seemed that there was one thought that was the conclusion in everyone's mind: no one should comment on anything until the matter about Narcissa's or Lily's punishment was cleared, or, more importantly (at least for the students) what would become of their social status. Most were vouching for a skyrocket in Lily's popularity, and Narcissa's downfall. Few talked about the recent events and went on to enjoy the dance.

Included in the few were, of course, the marauders and Aurelia. 

"The way she snapped at Narcissa and twisted all her insults right back at her, just like that! That was amazing!" Remus exclaimed.

Aurelia nodded. "Yeah. This really helped her boost her confidence, all right. I get the feeling that nobody's going to try to fight her anytime soon," she predicted happily. She was so proud of Lily for standing up for herself.

"I wish I had her bravery," Peter said sadly. 

"I hope she's all right now… I can't believe she helped Narcissa, after what that cow did to her all week," James said worriedly with a frown. If Narcissa hated Lily, and they were alone in a dark passage somewhere…

Sirius grinned. "Aw, Prongs, don't fret. What d'you think Narcissa's gonna do, attack Lily? I assure you, nobody would be able to retaliate after they get a dose of my special concoction…"

"So _that's what was in the pumpkin juice! Why did you put it in the goblet? Did you guess that Lily would rather throw it at Narcissa than hex her?" Aurelia asked._

"Nah, I'm no Divination whiz… I was going to trick Snape into drinking it…" 

Aurelia sighed and rolled her eyes. "Figures." 

Sirius' eyes lit up. "Oh yeah, you reminded me! I'm gonna dump a whole vial into this next one, it'll be real potent then…" He grinned mischievously as he took another full goblet of pumpkin juice and poured the contents of a vial in his robes into it. 

"How are you going to give it to him without arousing suspicion? After all, everybody saw Lily take the goblet from _your _hands, so the Slytherins would see right through you," Remus pointed out.

"I haven't thought about that…" Sirius said, scratching his chin. "Oh, hell with it, I'll pour my potion into every goblet in his and his friends' table…just to be sure." With a last wicked smile, he slid out of his chair and walked surreptitiously to Snape's table. Luckily, it was empty, all of the Slytherins were on the dance floor. _Who'd be stupid enough to go on a date with _Snape_? _he wondered in disbelief. _No wait, not stupid, crazy…or both. _

From afar, the other marauders watched him dumping his creation into all the goblets as fast as he could. 

Remus smiled amusedly, but then glanced back at the door to the Great Hall. Just in time, too, for Lily strolled into the Hall just then, Narcissa-and-professors-free. "Lily," he called when she was ten feet away, causing everybody else to turn in his direction. "Where've you been?"

Lily reached them and shrugged. "Went to the infirmary with Narcissa, I was gonna go back but I heard Professors McGonagall and Witzgromeneirre shouting at the top of their lungs in the intersecting corridor. Witzgromeneirre was yelling something about me murdering Narcissa and hiding her body somewhere unsuspicious, so I thought it wouldn't be a good time to bid them good night." There was a round of laughter at her response.

Peter shook his head. "I still can't believe you'd do something like that for Narcissa after everything she'd done to you…" 

"It's no big deal, like I said, I don't want to be as low as the Slytherins. I think that it's even more disbelieving that her friends wouldn't help her at all." Lily twirled a spoon around and around in her hands, slightly going red as she was the main subject at their table.

"Well, I did it," Sirius' voice said happily behind her, and Lily was grateful that they turned to look at Sirius; she wasn't used to being the center of attention. He only noticed Lily when he slid into his chair. "Oh, hi, Lily. Congratulations on kicking Slytherin butt!" He grinned. "And should I mention, I very soon will be too." He watched Snape's table, where two of his friends had sat down to. 

"You better run for it, or hide in the dance floor so that they wouldn't suspect you," James advised him. 

"Sure, sure, just don't take any credit for my work, you know I did it all by myself," Sirius reminded before bouncing all the way to the throng of people in the middle of the Hall.

A minute after he left, when Snape's friends grabbed the goblets and started to drink, Aurelia's eyes widened and she said, "Oh, shit, we better get out of here too—even if Sirius isn't around they'll assume that _we _put something in their drinks. We're the only ones not dancing, did you know?" She grabbed a surprised Remus' wrist and hauled him after Sirius, and within seconds her blonde head and Remus' light brown hair disappeared into the mob.

James shrugged at Lily, and they stood up and followed their friends. "May I have this dance, milady?" he asked mock-gentlemanly, grinning at her.

"Ugh, stop acting like that, I hate formalities," Lily answered, but a small smile tugged her lips and she took his hand. James wrapped his other arm around her waist, and she put her free arm around his neck. (ya know…standard romantic dance posture -_-)

They danced to three songs looking at each other with their eyes glazed over; whenever Remus and Aurelia passed them, Remus started laughing hysterically and Aurelia glared at him to shut up—but she couldn't help but smile either to see so much change in Lily. 

Over the dance music, there suddenly came screams and yells in the direction of Severus Snape's and his friends' table, with some very…unbecoming sounds added to the mix. Sirius' potion was obviously taking effect. 

James snapped out of his previous thoughts (_twinkling emerald orbs_) and peered over the heads of other couples who were too distracted gazing at their boyfriends/girlfriends to find out what new chaos was about. 

"I take it that Severus Snape and his gang are currently looking panic-stricken and are screaming their heads off hysterically," Lily said dryly, looking expectantly at James who barely needed to tiptoe to see over the crowd. 

"Of course. Whoever can mistake Snape's unusually high-pitched scream whenever he feels his already mutated face is magically becoming more horrifying?" James replied, grinning wickedly before returning his gaze to Lily. 

Lily shook her head. "James, that's harsh."

James broke into an expression of pretend shock. "Harsh? I was stating a well-known and proven _fact!" _

"Riiight… Still, I personally doubt that Sirius' concoction will make Snape look any worse—I mean, he already looks like he's been given more than his fair share of imperfection in the looks department…" Lily remarked.

James grinned. "Oh, who's being harsh now?" 

"Just following your lead," Lily said devilishly, smiling despite herself.

"You actually smiled! That's another count for the record!" James exclaimed. Several couples who weren't acting as mushy as the others glanced over at him like he was some weirdo.

Lily frowned suddenly, abolishing said smile. "What do you mean by that?" 

"I'm just casually stating that you need to smile more often, my dear," James said, cupping her chin in his hand—the one that wasn't wrapped around her waist. Smiling slightly, he started to tilt her head up and leaned forward, seeing clearly the expectant and anticipative look in Lily's eyes. His mouth hovered just millimeters above hers when a blur of midnight blue and black headed straight toward them. Fortunately, James saw it at the corner of his eye and practically jumped away from Lily, resulting into treading on somebody's foot.

"OW!!! Do you _mind?"_

"SIRIUS!" James yelled, ignoring the Hufflepuff boy who was glowering at him. 

"Shhhh!!! How do you expect I'm gonna run away from them if you shout out my name at the top of your lungs?!" Sirius hissed, ducking behind Lily.

"I understand that you're distressed, but I must point out that hiding behind me isn't a sensible idea, Sirius," Lily stated matter-of-factly. Her 5' 5" frame wasn't sufficient enough to cover 6' 2" Sirius. 

"Oh, hahaha, I don't need your sarcastic humor right now, Miss Ice Queen. What do you think I'm ducking for in the first place?" Sirius said sardonically. 

"They're coming this way…You'd better do something." James told his best friend. Sirius gulped and started to wring his hands. "Or maybe not… Lily, _you do something…"_

"Gods, whatever happens to people's brains when they're panicked…_Conseadio_,_" Lily muttered, tapping her wand on Sirius' head. He vanished._

"Whoa, I didn't say 'rid the dance of a sugar-rushed troublemaker,'" James said, taken aback. 

Lily opened her mouth, but an unseen voice interrupted her. "What did she do to me?! Quick, tell me what she—you did to me!" Lily's wand was suddenly plucked out of her hands by thin air. 

"It's an Invisibility Charm, you dimwit, and it wears off after a few minutes, so I suggest you get out of here if you don't want your ass to be grass," Lily snapped at the invisible Sirius, snatching her wand back. Remus and Aurelia, still dancing, whirled past them, staring at Lily quizzically. There was silence, and then an "OUCH! What the bloody hell was that?!" from about six feet away. 

"Don't worry, he'll be fine," James assured Lily, who pocketed her wand.

"Who, Sirius or the poor prat he practically flattened?" Lily responded. 

James laughed. "I think both will live," he said, resuming their dance as if nothing happened. There was no way he could kiss her now; like last time, Sirius had managed to break the romantic mood.

"I've been having a feeling that your best friend has made it his life's mission to prevent us from showing displays of affection as much as possible," Lily commented, voicing his thoughts. 

James laughed again; it really seemed like their minds were in sync. That never happened to him with anyone else, except maybe Sirius. Then again, pranksters' minds worked the same way. 

"What are you laughing about?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow and giving him a stare that meant that he had temporarily gone insane. 

"Nothing, just that that was exactly what I was thinking. Anyway, let's go somewhere else, even without Sirius there's still no privacy in this place. I was going to give you your gift anyway…" He led Lily through the mob of dancing students and the entrance hall. There were several couples who took advantage of the darker parts of the hall so they went on outside, walking until they reached a relatively secluded area, where thick bushed grew around one side of a stone bench and some slacker fairies wandered through, twinkling in the moonlight.

Sitting down on the bench, James gestured for Lily to do the same. "Here," he said with a smile, handing her the gift that Aurelia had seen him holding earlier. "Merry Christmas."

Lily clapped a hand to her mouth. "I can't believe I forgot, Aurelia was fussing over me so much that I didn't even bring it…" 

James stared at her. "What—"

_"Accio gift!"__ Lily shouted suddenly. James jumped in his seat. _

"Aw, I know you love me, but you didn't need to give me a heart attack," James joked as a shoe-box-sized gift zoomed toward Lily at warp speed. It started to slow down as it neared her and she caught it deftly in her hands. 

"Merry Christmas James," she said, giving him the gift. Strangely, there was a sad look in her eyes as he accepted it. 

"What's wrong, Lils?" he asked with concern. 

Lily snapped out of her reverie. "Huh? Oh…um, nothing. Shall we open them now?" 

James had the feeling that she was changing the subject, and thought that this must be the first time she had given somebody a gift since her parents passed away. He decided not to pry. "Depends… is it twelve o'clock already?" 

Looking at her watch, Lily answered, "11: 58," she read. 

"That's practically midnight, nobody's going to sue us if we don't open them now," James said indignantly.

"You don't like tradition, James?" Lily said with a smile, and it once again dawned on James that she rarely ever smiled, even when she was with his friends. It reminded him of how beautiful she really was if she smiled like that, and how half the smiles she cracked happened when he was with her. He went on thinking about Lily and smiles until he saw a hand waving in front of his face…

"Do you intend to while away the remaining two minutes till midnight by staring off into space?" Lily inquired, a full-fledged grin gracing her delicate features. 

James mirrored her expression. "It seems to me that you want to suggest a better way to pass the time, Lily-flower," he said playfully, pulling her closer until their noses touched.

"Don't call me that," Lily said in mock-annoyance, but she couldn't really think of anything sarcastic to say, not when she could feel his breath on her lips and the tingly sensation that ran down her spine at his touch. She parted her lips willingly and felt a wave of warmth wash over her as they kissed. It lasted for twenty seconds before they heard a sound in the bushes. 

"Awww… *sniff* that is just _so _sweet…" a voice not so subtly whispered in feigned emotion. 

"Shut up, you pinhead," another voice hissed.

"But I can't help it, I'm so touched…" the first voice answered sniffily, though it was shaking slightly, probably with contained laughter. There was a sound of a nose being blown. 

James sighed. _"Incendio," he said, pointing his wand at a particularly large, quivering bush._

"JAMES!!!" three voices yelled, while another just squeaked in fright. Lily shook her head.

"Is that some way of treating your friends? Burning them alive?!" Sirius said irritably, straightening up. He was holding a handkerchief. 

"What happened to Mr. Sensitive-and-oh-so-touched?" Remus asked wickedly.

"I do believe that anybody who is feeling emotional won't get the urge to shed a few tears if one of their friends just attempted to set their hides on fire!" Sirius retorted, stuffing the handkerchief into a pocket in his robes.

"_I do believe that that would just cause the sensitive person to cry even more, as he wouldn't expect his fire-happy friend to do something like that to him," Remus shot back amusedly._

"Well, I don't know what you two believe, but what I _can't_ believe is that I let myself be persuaded by you two to come with you, only to get my best dress robes singed by your demented, flame-loving pal!" Aurelia snapped, glowering at the pair of them. Remus and Sirius quailed under her harsh glare, and she suddenly burst out laughing.

"I think you're the one off your rocker," Sirius said.

"You two look like two deer caught in headlights!" Aurelia said between giggles. "All that believing must be making you gullible."

Sirius frowned. "No, we aren't, that's Peter's business," he corrected, pointing at Peter, who was hopping on the spot because the hem of his robes were on fire. 

James conjured a bucket of water and used it to extinguish Peter's burden. "What _I'd like to ask is what business you four have being here," he said, frowning at the on-the-spot intruders. _

"What else? Breaking up your little make-out session because it's sooo fun!!!" Sirius exclaimed gleefully. 

Remus looked at him uncertainly. "You're having one of your momentarily-going-crazy moments again," he warned.

"I am? I've been waiting for it! Free butterbeer, everybody!" Sirius yelled, pulling six bottles from his robes. 

"How do you keep all that in there?" Lily asked, amazed.

"I can carry _anything with me!" Sirius announced proudly before taking a swig from his bottle. _

"Except his sanity," James muttered, but accepted a butterbeer bottle from his manic best friend.

Aurelia shook her head. "He got hit by a Hyperactivity Hex just as he was leaving the Great Hall; the Invisibility Charm he had on himself was starting to fade by then," she explained to James and Lily.

"Hyperactivity plus Sirius equals disaster," James grumbled. 

"We were lucky that the Slytherin who cast it didn't master the spell, and it only had a partial effect," Remus said. 

"You call that partial?" said Lily, gesturing at Sirius who was jumping up and down on the bench, singing Christmas carols at the top of his lungs and using his butterbeer bottle as a microphone. The beverage only made him more hyper.

"At least it didn't kick in until we were hiding in the bushes," Remus reasoned. "Wait a sec… I think it was his hyperactivity that made him push us into following you two in the first place…" 

"WE WISH YOU A MEEEERRRRRYYYY CHRISTMAAAAASSSSSS…. AND A HAAAAPPY NEW YEEEEEEAAAARRRRR!!!" Sirius sang. 

"Whatever he did, it's obvious that he doesn't respect other people's privacy," James said, glancing disapprovingly at Sirius.

"I don't think he even knows the meaning of the word 'privacy,'" Peter chimed in. 

James rolled his eyes. "If that's the case, then I don't care anymore," he announced. 

"About what?" Peter asked, his tone puzzled. 

Remus nodded his head vigorously. "Yeah, wha—?" 

But his words were cut off as James grabbed Lily and kissed her on the spot. Lily was so surprised that she dropped her butterbeer bottle, which splattered Remus and Peter with sticky liquid before falling to the ground with a clatter. 

"Eeeeeeeew. PDA! JAMES AND LILY, SITTING IN A TREE, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!!!" Sirius changed his line of lyrics and clapped gleefully. Everybody had different reactions; Peter covered his ears with his hands and shut his eyes; Remus clapped a hand to his forehead and shook his head, Aurelia smiled amusedly at Sirius and Lily and James; Lily flushed even redder than she had been when James kissed her; and James looked like he was off in la-la land and couldn't care less what his best friend was singing.

"…FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MARRIAGE—"

_"Reticence," _Aurelia murmured, pointing her wand at Sirius, who was silenced, but still jumped incessantly, mouthing the words . "Well then," she said brightly to Remus, who appeared to be the only other person who was not too occupied to converse, "this night certainly turned out quite interesting."

Remus smiled, glanced at Lily and James, who were still caught in a passionate lip lock, then at Sirius, who looked like he had given up singing without a voice and resorted to downing as many ounces of butterbeer that he could, then at Peter, who was curled up in a ball at the foot of the bench with his eyes tightly shut and his fingers in his ears, and finally, back at Aurelia. "Yep, definitely qualifies as a photographic moment that you can keep in your mind's memory album," he quipped. 

Aurelia smirked. "Why not? _Accio__ camera!"__ Moments later, her camera came flying towards her, and with another twirl of her wand she made it stop in midair, in the exact position that would be perfect for a snapshot of the scene before them. She and Remus joined their friends (Lily and James didn't notice the camera, nor anybody else for that matter), Remus bending down next to Peter to see if he was okay, and Aurelia gesturing at Sirius to go down from the bench (Sirius, finding the absence of vocal capacity, was using animated hand signs to argue with her). _

As the camera took the picture, emitting a flash in their direction, one thought, unsaid, seemed to weave into all of the six friends' minds, no matter how preoccupied they all were with their tasks.

Yes, that moment would definitely be a night to remember. 

*****  

Six months later, those six friends departed Platform Nine and Three Quarters and went on to their separate ways. The six months of school left had passed in a blur, and the overall outcome was that Lily had quickly risen up the social ladder (though she continuously denied it); the Gryffindors won the House Cup, owing much to their victory in the Inter-House Quidditch Championship; most of the students had accepted the fact that Lily was no longer an outcast and was now a well-respected Gryffindor who was James Potter's girlfriend, and had realized that she in fact had a nice personality that they had not been able to see before; the Slytherins continued to jeer at the Gryffindors (and Lily) but the insults lessened tremendously since the scene at the Christmas ball. 

It had been quite a school year for Lily Evans, and all the changes that fate had worked in her favor resulted in her being discharged from the orphanage and staying with a very distant relative, who had agreed to take her and Petunia in and had apologized profusely for not being able to hear about their terrible family ordeal sooner. 

Lily sat in the front passenger seat of her great aunt's car, playing with the bracelet on her wrist. It was the bracelet that James had given her for Christmas. Its chain was silver, and round, different-colored gems dangled from it. She recalled the note that was inside the box containing the gift that she had opened on Christmas Day. 

_Lily,_

_I've always loved your smile. Here's a gift that would make you do so more often, and I hope that whenever it does, it'll remind you of how much happiness there is, and will be, in your life. _

_Love always,_

_                                                                                                                                                                                                                       James_

She had always been baffled as to how a bracelet was going to make her smile, but she had never asked him, nor had she pondered much what the note really meant. Recalling the memory, she fidgeted with the bracelet and fingered a blue gem carefully. To her surprise, a horizontal line suddenly appeared around the gem, splitting it in half, and the top half separated from its lower counterpart partially, as if an invisible hinge connected it to the lower half. Something in the core of the lower half shone, and a minuscule projection shot out of it, hovering above the open gem.

The tiny projection showed the scene of the Great Hall bedecked in red and pink—the Valentines Ball. It was zoomed in at two particular people—James and her, in fact—dancing in the middle of the Great Hall. As Lily watched, the memory of the event brought a smile to her lips, and she found out, finally, what James meant when his gift would make her smile. 

She played with the other gems, each one showing a different happy memory. She felt considerably happier than when she had said goodbye to her friends at the platform, knowing that she wouldn't see them for two whole months. She opened the last gem, which was the most interesting, as it flashed different colors every few seconds. Instead of a projection, shimmering light that flashed in different colors like the gem shot out of it, forming tiny letters, then words, in front of Lily. She read the message with her eyes.

_There's always something to smile about._

*****  

James was in the backseat of his dad's "normal" car, as his dad referred to it (it was a Muggle car). Though the Potters were purebloods, his dad had a high position in the Ministry and he constantly told James that it was vital to "hold important relations both in the wizarding and Muggle worlds." So they had two cars, the Muggle one and one that his father had gotten from the Ministry. They also had electricity at home, two telephone lines, and a bunch of other Muggle things that his parents considered important for him to know about. 

Sirius was in the backseat with him, as their houses were right across each other and Mr. Potter had volunteered to fetch him to save his dad the trouble. Once again he was in one of his temporarily-insane-and-doesn't-know-what-he's-doing moments. He was laughing for no apparent reason and handed James a shiny red apple. 

James sighed. He had been staring out the window at the bright green lawns of the houses they passed. Grass reminded him of green, green reminded him of emerald, and emerald reminded him of Lily's eyes. If Sirius was in a crazy frenzy, he was lost in a Lily daydream. Thankfully (if you could call it that) Sirius had snapped him out of it by giving him the apple.

"Why did you give me an apple?" James asked his loony best friend.

Sirius stopped sniggering. "To tell you the truth, I don't know." Then he started laughing again.

James rolled his eyes. "Sirius…"

"What?" 

"Go to sleep." Surprisingly, Sirius did just that, and there was silence in the car for a moment, occasionally punctuated by Sirius' snores.

"Thanks, dad," James said.

Mr. Potter grinned. "No problem. Sirius was starting to worry me, who knows what he'll do when he's…"

"Mentally unstable," James finished. "Where did he get this apple, anyway?" he asked, holding up the ripe fruit.

His father shrugged. "I have no idea." 

There was silence again, and, with nothing else to do, James tossed the apple up and down. The apple was ripe, and ripe apples were red. Red made him think of Lily's hair… He threw the apple too hard and it hit him on the head. "Ow!" 

"You all right, son?" his dad said from the front. 

"I'm okay," James grumbled, rubbing the sore spot on his head. The way that every single thing in sight reminded him of his girlfriend was driving him crazy, but in a good way. It brought a smile to his lips to remember the first time he had taken an interest in befriending Lily. Back then, she was purposefully rude and had a defense mechanism that was almost impossible to break through. Almost. But like every other person in the world, she had a weakness, and it was that sudden show of vulnerability in her otherwise cold and mean demeanor that tweaked his interest in her. 

And after he and his friends broke through that barrier, Lily's real personality slowly started to show, and that was when he started to fall for her. But even though he knew all her secrets and changes in her life, she was still unpredictable sometimes. That was just another thing that he loved about her, that she could be sweet and vulnerable, yet be guarded and fierce when there were those who opposed her. Like a mother eagle. Caring to its young, but ferocious when the need to protect them was required. (I have absolutely no idea if eagle are the maternal sort… -_-)

Right at that moment an eagle owl swooped overhead, and James groaned. Eagle owls most definitely reminded him of eagles, and due to his previous thoughts, it, of course, reminded him of Lily… What was an owl doing soaring around in broad daylight anyway? 

Giving up trying to push Lily out of his mind (there was no escaping it), he closed his eyes and just listened to the sounds inside the car. Feeling like this was unavoidable anyway, his mind drifted to the whirl of Lily's life—her story. He just let the image of her face loom in his mind's eye while the sound of the radio assaulted his ears, vaguely hearing the deejay announcing the next song as "Story of a Girl" by "Nine Days." 

James didn't really focus on the lyrics of the Muggle song, until the chorus, since it was the clearest part.

_This is the story of a girl_

_Who cried a river and drowned the whole world_

_And while she looks so sad in photographs_

_I absolutely love her_

_When she smiles_

James' eyes snapped open, and he stared at the car radio as if seeing it for the first time. Then, he let out a full-fledged grin. 

Yep, that was his girl all right. 

**~End~**

**A/N –  Please** bear with me, as I am so out of ideas. Summer vacation is making me brain-dead. But, come on! This whole chapter's worth two—it's _nineteen and one-third _pages long!!! As in, 11,359 words—_not _including the A/N's! I still worked hard on this chappie even if I think it isn't as good as the others. Since the chapter's so long, I think I'm entitled to a long author's note too…so here's my thanks to the reviewers of chappie 11. I would thank those who reviewed in chappie 10 too, but being the lazy ass that I am… 

**SVZ – **Thanks! I don't mind that you reviewed late at all, it's probably just karma for me 'cause I update late ^_^ **August 'roxy' ****Taylor**** – Forget the slash fic? Hehe… Cymone wouldn't like to hear that, but personally I think you're right. ^_~ ****danielle** – **I didn't exactly hook them up, sorry, but they _are together at the ball, right? Hope you don't mind. _****jules182hprox – I'm really, _really sorry that I ended the fic in this chappie…somehow I think I've failed everybody else who said I shouldn't, but I really am running out of ideas (big surprise), being the uncreative person that I am. _Don't be mad at me, OK??? _**Saffron – **Thanks! But I didn't update fast enough as usual…sorry 'bout that. _****Lizmaurder4ever – You don't need to write a long review, I appreciate your support no matter how short it is! ****KC Kee – Recognition Day? Ummm…it's this day for us kids in school who worked hard during the school year to: 1.) do all our assignments on time and add long, touchy-feely stories to the essays so that the teachers will have tears in their eyes after reading them and give us a perfect score 2.) act polite to proper authority figures so that they think we're perfect little angels and 3.) be really 'responsible,' act like good leaders to our fellow classmates and look like we diligently follow the school rules on the surface, even if we really don't, but the teachers believe we're well-behaved anyway (OK, so we're not _all _that bad…). We get to stand on a stage where our names are called one by one (to be 'recognized') and we get a gold certificate and a complementary gift to boot. Am I rambling? Yes? *whacks head with a stuffed toy* Anyway, I did what you said about the Christmas ball! Thanx for the idea! Although it wasn't eggnog. Oh well… **Shaye****** – Ahh! The puppy dog eyes! Can't…resist… wait a minute, I'm late! Sorry… **Yuffie******-Girl – Thanks for not minding if I ended it here! I made it end after the school year, hope it's more satisfactory then. ****kerry**** – Thanks so much! ****Mysticpixie** – **Sirius and matchmaking don't sound right in the same sentence ^_^ *****snow* - My fic? Addictive? I'm flattered…thanks! **Lupus Argenteus Noctus – **Well, here's more! **lilliana****** – Thanks for the compliment ^_^**** Shinning ****Crystal**** – Thank you! ***Diva – **Thanks! And without a crazy Sirius in any marauder story, where'd half the fun be? **Harmonia****** – That makes three people who wanted a couple more chapters… I'm really really really sorry!!! This chapter is the longest one I've ever made in this fic, so I hope you won't be disappointed!  **

BTW… I _know _that it's impossible for Nine Days to release _Story of a Girl\When She Smiles_ in Lily's time, but the song was perfect for Lily's situation. Just wanted to clear that part…

Nyweiz, thank you to my reviewers and the writers who put me in their Fave Author List because of this story… YOU GUYS ROCK!!! 

~Dimantrien


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